> > Besides, a good number of us have reasons to fear that we, too, may
>> be objects of hatred or collateral damages of it, because of where we
>> come from, what we look like, what we believe, what we say, etc. If
>> some of us don't feel like jumping onto a hating and cheering
>> bandwagon, that may be because we don't feel safe.
>
>Obviously hating people based on race, ethnicity or political beliefs is
>totally monstrous. I'm only suggesting we permit ourselves to hate mass
>murderers of all stripes - Al Quaeda as well as Bush, etc.
Hatred, however, doesn't work like a surgical knife, and neither does police work, much less war. (Well, even in surgery, medical errors are quite common.) Those who wish to mobilize hate for a just cause may think that they can use it like a smart bomb, but even smart bombs are not so smart, capable of hitting unintended targets.
It seems to me that hatred and suspicion exist in American minds abundantly, without leftists trying to fan the flame. I just came back to Columbus after a brief stay in Japan, and the first news I got on TV in the States was about the three Muslim medical students who got detained in Florida thanks to the tip from a woman who became alarmed by their conversations she overheard and probably misinterpreted in Georgia. Makes me think that I should watch what I say, because, apparently, what I say may very well be misinterpreted for "Sympathy for the Devil" even by leftists like Tahir and Doug. Who knows what those opposed to the left might think! No wonder Steve Earle got flaks for his song "John Walker's Blues."
> > Also, the sorts of punishments meted out to those who were said to
>> belong to the Taliban or Al Qaeda (torture and execution by the
>> Northern Alliance soldiers, indefinite detention with no legal rights
>> in the penal colony in Guantanamo, etc.), I don't even wish on my
>> personal enemies.
>
>All the more reason the left should continue to involve itself in the
>discussion of bringing the guilty to *justice.* I'm suggesting a critical
>hatred: we hate the criminals, not the people who have been accused without
>being convicted. We hate the human rights violations, and the US failure to
>participate in the International Criminal Court. But we cheer the
>investigations and hope Al Quaeda's ass is grass.
We are not the ones who are empowered to determine who are the guilty and bring them to justice, and we will not be, for a foreseeable future -- except maybe through TIPS. For the most part we have been unable to stop racial profiling, police brutality, and criminal injustice against the poor in domestic affairs; what chances do we have in "directing the hate" in the combination of war, policing, espionage, and covert action conducted by the USA and its ad hoc allies like Egypt and Pakistan? More importantly, while domestic policing in itself (minus crimes by the police) is compatible with the existing legal standards of liberal democracy, the USA acting as the policeman of the world who makes laws while standing above them is not compatible with the existing body of international law -- but might makes right....
As for Al Qaeda, what do we know about them (its membership, its hierarchy of responsibility, etc.)? Do we know enough facts about them to be able to say confidently whose asses we are talking about? Or do we trust the investigative work of the US government and its allies when they say they got the bad guys?
>Somewhat reluctant to do this out of the sense that the refusal was stupid
>rather than callous, and my point in bringing this up is not to moralize but
>to point out the sometimes absurd tendencies toward self-marginalization on
>the left, and to point out that sometimes it wouldn't kill us to find more
>common ground with the average person. There was a large NYC coalition that
>met shortly after September 11, and at its founding meeting - which I
>attended - people fought *bitterly* about this question. That coalition then
>splintered into a couple of other groups, a few of which also continued to
>fight about the same issue. Those who wanted to condemn the attacks were
>sometimes called racists and imperialists. There was also a group in Detroit
>I know of that agreed not to condemn the attacks - a close friend of mine,
>who agreed with that decision, is a member of the group. I heard anecdotally
>- from peace activists around the country - about other examples. Of course,
>as I said, many peace groups did condemn the attacks.
Without knowing which groups you are talking about, I'm unable to make firm judgments about them. As even you conclude that "many peace groups" did condemn the attacks, however, perhaps the refusal to condemn them is not as widespread as you and Doug initially made it sound like. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>