Is there a nonviolent response to September 11?

Seth Ackerman sackerman at FAIR.org
Tue Oct 9 16:40:46 PDT 2001


Ian Murray wrote:


> Ok so you don't advocate for the death penalty on this one? Just
> asking; if not how is the current US response justified if innocent
> people are dying in the process of apprehending the suspect?
. Am I advocating for the death penalty? Well, I'm against the death penalty. But if the people who planned the Sept 11 attacks were executed, I wouldn't be holding any vigils. I have a lot of cousins who serve in the Israeli army, some who get sent to the territories. I would be distraught if they died. But I can't deny the Palestinians' right to shoot at soldiers occupying their land and tearing down their houses.

If this attitude towards the concept of "justice" is a little anguished and uncomposed, then maybe that can be taken as a statement of my general feeling about this strange war. Maybe the peace movement or the left need to add a little anguish to their "no-war" chants.


> Again you're begging the question that what is to be done is
> subsumable under the concept of justice. How can we know that is the
> case is what I'm asking.
. We can't know with *certainty.* But we also can't be paralyzed into a stance so agnostic about justice as to leave Donald Rumsfeld as the only voice people wanting "justice" can listen to. That's my main concern. Beyond that, I'm happy to think deeper about what needs to be done.

Seth



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