Maybe the problem arises because in a discussion of micro-motives and guilt, somebody injects the environmental context, and vice versa. So individual evil is conflated with patterns and it was bound to happen talk, and the macro-context is rejected out of a focus on the specifics.
The discussions ought to be kept separate. All we really know about the kidnappers is from their note to the press, and their gruesome video theatrics. So any macro analysis of this particular event is grounded in speculation, which in context of a death can be off-putting. Doubly so when the speculation offers simple shit that everyone knows. --mbs
This is pretty silly. To attempt to understand the motives and causes of the murders of September 11, that of Daniel Pearl, or even the attack on Robert Fisk is hardly to justify them (which seems to be the burden of "finding natural"). --CGE
On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, Brad DeLong wrote:
> So it's natural to kill Daniel Pearl because of Israeli policies
> toward the occupied territories, just as (in Robert Fisk's opinion at
> least) it's natural to try to kill Robert Fisk because of U.S.
> policies toward Afghanistan?