Hitchens on single standards

[ravi]

Dennis Perrin wrote:
>>yes, i am another "malignant fuck" or moral idiot too, if the
>>choice is exclusively between carrying out war on the people of
>>afghanistan and doing nothing, for i prefer the latter.
>>
> So, you'd rather see millions starve under the Taliban, which was quite
> possible, than having that famine averted, as Oxfam reported in January?
> You'd rather watch half of Afghanistan's population be turned into slaves
> and executed in soccer stadiums? Hell, even RAWA conceded in its recent
> statement that there's more room now for their efforts than under the
> "wolves" of the Taliban. Do you really believe it would have benefited the
> people of Afghanistan if we had done nothing?
> 

so this whole war on terrorism was to save the afghani people from the
taliban? so why did *you* wait till 9/11? and you believe that declaring
war and killing many afghani people was the best way to achieve this
betterment of their condition?

*we* could have done a lot. declaring war on afghanistan was one of the
less productive ones among those things we could have done. thats what i
believe. and i agree with jks that we were morally wrong in pursuing
that particular line of action.

the guy from the UN who spoke at the event doug moderated in nyc, used
the same logic. as if our primary goals (a better life for the people of
afghanistan, as they define it) are achievable only as some sort of
side-effect or unintended consequence of another activity! kind of like
the selfishness theories of capitalism or dawkins' biology...

dennis, i appreciate your responding to me. if you detect animosity in
my response, attribute it to frustration, and my apologies. i just do
not understand the argument you outline above, and i feel it has
dangerous and apologist consequences.

	--ravi