On Monday, December 2, 2002, at 08:13 AM, Bradford DeLong wrote:
>>
>> In any case, I don't understand the point you're
>> making. Do you mean that the killing of Bonnie Penner
>> was an equivalent violation of international law to
>> Israel's occupation of Lebanon and killing of 20,000
>> civilians? Would you have said the same thing if a
>> nurse from Iraq's closest ally had been killed in
>> Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation? "If one is going
>> to talk about international law regarding the Iraqi
>> invasion, one should also talk about jus in bello..."
>
> Your argument seems to have the structure, "X killed Y, so it is OK
> for Z to kill W."
>
> One *can* condemn both the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the killing
> of Bonnie Penner. I have. And I do.
brad,
your argument seems to have the structure, "X killed Y non-combatant; so that is the moral equivalent of Z killing thousands of other non-combatants."
do you think that one *can* condemn *all* these killings and still argue that, say, Z is worse than X . . .is *that* not the structure of the logical defense of bush's anti-terrorist aggression since 9-11?
where are our resident utilitarians? ;-)
j