> On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Nathan Newman wrote:
>>Don't agree with every
> > word of Hitch but the basic point is sound -- to the extent that any
action
> > issued from the Taliban-based world of oppression, the discussions of
US
> > crimes "causing" the mass murder of Sept 11 is ridiculous..to give any
moral
>> status or even link of mass murder as connected to legitimate struggles
>> against injustice is an obscenity.
>
> Well, yeah, but Hitchens is relying on a pretty dirty tactic, namely
> equating those who oppose the appointed president's new 'war on terrorism'
> with sympathy for the attack.
Hitches is not equating opposition to Bush's war to sympathy for the attack. He is equating excuses and "explanations" for the attack with sympathy for the attack. Plenty of people do oppose the war without making such "explanations."
Unfortunately, those who insist on such explanations of the morally unexplainable cheapen and disgrace the anti-war movement. Sometimes criminals are just criminals- large numbers of people globally, including the Palestinian leadership, have little problem recognizing that. Why some American leftists feel a need to besmirch the Palestinian cause by even linking this act to them is beyond me.
The National Lawyers Guild, which has been second to no group in attacking US international policy in a range of areas and Israel's oppression of the Palestinians specifically (see http://www.nlg.org/committees/International/Middle%20East%20Cmte/middle_east _delegation_report.htm for a recent report), but the New York chapter voted last night to refuse to participate in one New York coalition against the war if it continues to refuse to include prosecution of the criminals involved as one goal of the movement. And that sentiment is shared by a large number of participants who were denied the right to add that point of unity based on "consensus" rules barring its addition.
> > The Germans suffered serious injustice following World War I; so should
be
> > just "explain" the Holocaust as a misguided overreaction to justified
> > grievances?
>
> Gosh no. But we sure can objectively analyze what conditions prior to
> Hitler's rise made it more likely that one :His party would come to power
> and 2) His party would remain in power for as long as it did. We damned
> sure *can* ask those questions, I don't care how offended Hitchens would
> be by that question.
Despair, Repression, Propaganda - all interesting things to analyze how Hitler gained and held power. Which is separate from why Hilter and his circle used those tools to promote mass murder of the Jews. And separate from why a small group of people with premeditation committed mass murder.
There is no sociological explanation for the latter issues
-- Nathan Newman