Al-Q Honcho Hit

[Gordon Fitch]

> >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.

Yoshie Furuhashi:
> What's worse than (3) already happened, though not in Tennessee: the 
> bombing of MOVE in Philadelphia on May 13, 1985, incinerating an 
> entire city block; and the burning of 76 men, women, and children in 
> the assault on the Branch Davidians in Waco on April 19, 1993.
> 
> I guess demoralization is already pretty far gone.  It's no wonder 
> that right-wing Belligerent Observers take assassination of 
> foreigners in stride.

No, events like the bombing of MOVE and the slaughter of
the Branch Davidians were subsequently held, however
hypocritically, to be mistakes or "overreactions", by and
large.  By contrast, the hit in Yemen is being celebrated
as a success, which gives it a profoundly different 
character.  I'm not noticing the moral deficiencies of
individuals, but the demoralization of a whole society.

-- Gordon