> And he's a little disturbing when he declares the WTC a "legitimate
> military target":
>
>> It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that
>> a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the
>> logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have
>> consistently sought to justify target selection in places like
>> Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American "command and
>> control infrastructure" in an ostensibly civilian facility converted
>> the Trade Center itself into a "legitimate" target.
>
> If he's turning the standards of the Pentagon against the U.S., then
> he's adopting the morality of the imperialists, no?
I think he meant to argue this way:
The Defense Department* and its supporters argue that even the "cleanest" war sometimes causes civilian casualties. If that is *their* standard of morality, they shouldn't object to my [Prof. Churchill's] excusing the 9/11 guys for causing some civilian casualties.
This isn't adopting the imperialist morality. It's turning that morality against itself. The problem with his argument, of course, is that, as you say, it's hard to consider very many -- in fact, almost any at all -- of the people killed on 9/11 as "legitimate military personnel," so the 9/11 gang's actions produced a hell of a lot of "collateral damage." If they really wanted to minimize civilian casualties, as any civilized combatant would want to do, they could have targeted their actions more precisely than plowing jumbo jets into very tall skyscrapers.
(*BTW, I've always liked the view that we should go back to calling it the "War Department," which is what it is.)
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)