WSWS on Pearl

Max B. Sawicky sawicky at bellatlantic.net
Wed Feb 27 11:01:21 PST 2002


. . . This is clearly a personal tragedy and a unique act of savage, racist murder. But (and an economist of all people ought to be able to recognise this dual character) it is at the same time, an event which is part of a wider pattern, and a predictable outcome of a previous policy choice on the part of the CIA (to recruit journalists).

I don't understand why this is so offensive; I certainly regret the offence caused. dd

I will try to explain. These remarks do not necessarily apply to you.

There is no argument that the CIA uses or employs journalists, and that the CIA commits crimes in our name which are our responsibility. Nor that such crimes, both real and imagined, provoke violence in response. Suggestions to the contrary are annoying.

Imagine losing a relative in an automobile accident, and hearing somebody say, well it was inevitable since 50,000 people die in automobiles every year. Drowning a victim into a 'pattern' is tantamount to cancelling his/her identity. No cause is served by suggesting the WSJ shouldn't have sent DP to Pakistan because it's dangerous there. Nor is it informative.

When the cause of a tragedy is an evil human design (stemming from all the sociological/political explanations you like), attributing it to some broader context, however accurately, suggests a rationalization for the act. There's nothing wrong with a discussion about the CIA and journalists; one would hope it was leavened by some information. Bringing this up in the context of DP without any such information is annoying.

In the case in question, the broader design is not so obvious. Nobody here can say that the act had zero to do with the CIA, the U.S., or Zionism, rather than an effort to destabilize the current Pakistani regime. It's been noted that in the case of OBL, there is some discontinuity between his likely interest in who rules Saudi Arabia, and his actual solicitude for Palestine.

We already know that in radical/fundamentalist Islam, there is no principled objectioin to collaborating with the CIA and the US Gov, not even in the case of OBL himself.

So implying an anti-CIA/zionist/us imperialism context to DP is gross speculation. And using the occasion of a tragedy for gross speculation is also annoying.

mbs



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