Al-Q Honcho Hit

[Gordon Fitch]

Dennis Perrin:
> I knew it -- the wiping out of a handful of al-Q thugs, at the hands of the
> US, incites all manner of "legalistic" hand-wringing, at least from the
> rational left. We have yet to hear from the ultra faction, but I'm sure the
> sentiment is the same (though wasn't when the Red Army did this and much
> worse).
> 
> Just a reminder: al-Q is at war with us. They said so quite explicitly in
> 1998, and offered a hard reminder in 2001.
> 
> I suppose you could cry about a bunch of Nazi officials getting blown up in
> their jeep by Allied artillery -- after all, why not arrest them and put
> them on trial? Oh damn, then there's that tangle of "victor's justice" and
> all that icky Nuremberg junk.
> 
> Wring, wring . . .

You're just getting the usual liberal rule-of-law stuff.
"Wring, wring", as you say.  People worrying about their
moral bank accounts and all that.

There are other ways of looking at the situation -- as you do
above.  If you extend the logic a little, you can see a process
of demoralization going on, where, gradually, more and more
dubious acts become acceptable, with each act rendering the
next step more feasible.  Demoralization is a form of social
degeneration in which a community gradually loses the rules
or principles which bind it together.  The end result, assuming
the process isn't arrested, is a moral collapse in which the
members of the community can no longer maintain it as a coherent
social entity; something like civil war or a coup d'etat is
likely to follow.  Personally, while I can see the historical
grandeur of it all, I'm not looking forward to participating
in it, and I'm wondering if there's some place I can hide out.
Probably not, eh?

I know this will seem hard to believe of good old America, 
but think about it.  A for-instance may help. 

1.  It's okay to kill some guys in a car in Yemen with a rocket
because you suspect them of being members of Al-Qaeda.

2.  It's okay to kill some guys in a car in Germany with a rocket
because you suspect them of being members of Al-Qaeda.

3.  It's okay to kill some guys in a car in Tennessee with a rocket
because you suspect them of being members of Al-Qaeda.

-- that sort of thing; see what I mean?  Everyone can play;
locale isn't the only term you might vary.

-- Gordon