Note to the "ladder of force left"

Ian Murray seamus2001 at home.com
Thu Oct 25 18:40:54 PDT 2001


From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>


> Ian Murray wrote:
>
> >Given the evidence above in conjunction with the reasoning of some
> >list members, the US would be justified in bombing Saudi Arabia
>
> Just which listmembers have supported bombing?
>
> Doug

=========== I'm happy to be wrong, but you have decontextualized some of what I've wrote. That being said, here's what I find puzzling:


>From Max [and Max, feel free to beat up on me if, after reading my
whole statement, you are against the action the US Gov. is taking]

"The UN solutions are not worth much either. You cannot expect effective military action by a broad coalition. The asymmetries of power make such coalitions illusory in the first place. There will be some lead dogs with closely shared goals, and some show dogs who risk little because they have little to gain. What soldier would want to put his or her life in the hands of an apparatus suffused with a plethora of political interests? There is enough of that in one country's armed forces. That's why it would be hard to muster a political majority in the U.S. for a conflict where U.S. soldiers were not under the command indirectly of politicians who have at least a smidgeon of local accountability.

"The many-named-babe made a point that has been glossed over: sometimes all of the choices suck. They still have to be made. We, and I do mean 'we,' have been attacked. We would be fools not to accept the need of the Gov to respond, not because that is what everybody thinks, nor because it is easy to do, nor because the Gov is an effective or legitimate instrument for such purposes, but because it is the only way to do what must be done."

mbs

======= Now this can be construed as reluctant acquiescence, but that evades the issue of justification, whether one uses moral concepts or not. However, if there is going to be military action under at least minimal respect for normative to legal justification for one's retaliation, then at least one should get the *target* right. This leads us to a quandary based on the NYT piece. Either the Saudi's are lying when they are quoted as stating:

Asked at a news conference on Saturday whether Saudi Arabia had found and frozen the bank accounts of organizations linked to terrorism, Prince Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, the interior minister, said Saudi authorities and banks "have not established any accounts linked to Al Qaeda, bin Laden or any quarter associated with terrorism."

Which means either it was a largely Saudi-based group of thugs or they haven't figured it out yet that it wasn't even though the majority actually involved in 9-11 were Saudis. Or the US is lying, or both are totally ignorant *still* with regards to who the ultimate perpetrators of 9-11 are. If the latter, then the bombing is simply wrong and the US is engaged in indiscriminate murder. If the Saudi's are lying, then the US needs to come up with evidence that shows that is the case in order to further consolidate it's ridiculous attempt at the justification for its military action. I'm not by any means saying that will happen, but if it doesn't then things may be even more capricious than they already appear to be.

If the Saudi's are telling the truth, the US is now murdering the wrong people deliberately and needs to be stopped as quickly as possible using the all too weak instruments of international law that can be mustered. If the Saudi's are telling the truth and the ultimate perpetrators--survivors-- are harbored within their territory, then some action must be taken against the Saudi state [legal please, no bombing] that has the full backing of the international community. Either way we parse the issue the US needs to stop killing/murdering innocent people until it can get the *facts* right and then switch target/strategies if it's retaliation is to have any justification whatsoever--irrespective of whether leftists condemn it or engage in reluctant acquiescence. As it stands now it's use of force can only be condemned. However it is not an apriori that the use of force in retaliation wrong. We may not like it, hence the reluctant acquiescence, but there is something to the anti knee jerk critique.

Again, if I'm misunderstanding Max' post, apologies in advance and feel free to chew me out.

Ian



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