> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Stephen E Philion" <philion at hawaii.edu>
>
>
> > 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.
> >
Steve responded:
> > 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.
>
nathan responds:
> 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."
>
i disagree, He's taking on people like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky for making 'excuses' for the terrorist acts. In neither case is there good cause for that type of argument. I think it's also just as useful to ask ourselves and others if what is amazing about the incident is that, given the conditions of the present, that there aren't *more* such incidents. One can make that argument and likewise not for a second sympathize with the people who committed that atrocious act on 9/11. No differently than asking that question when a riot occurs in a US city. Or, for that matter, when the Okalahoma City Bombing occurred.
> 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.
I think the argument we have made is a little more complex than that. A lot more so in fact.
> 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.
>
Steve responds:
I'm not sure I see the relation of this with Hitchens' argument. What you
write is not unreasonable, what Hitchens argues is.
Nathan wrote:
> > > The Germans suffered serious injustice following World War I; so should
> be just "explain" the Holocaust as a misguided overreaction to justified
grievances?
I had responded:
> > 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.
>
To which nathan responds:
> 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
>
Interesting, surely from one vantage, but not necessarily helpful in terms of what is the needed course of action to resolve the problem.
Steve
> -- Nathan Newman
>
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