Stardate 20030112.1054

(Captain's log): An anonymous reader writes:

In your 1-11-03 article, you make the following comment about the 9-11 attack on NYC:

"We were attacked first. But now that we have been attacked, we're going to do what's necessary to make sure it doesn't happen again any more times than is absolutely unavoidable. We didn't decide that there would be a war; that was decided by those who made the plans for the attacks in NYC and Washington. Our only choice is where it will be fought, and how, and who will do the fighting."

By starting your analysis with the attack on NYC, "we were attacked first," you are taking advantage of "punctuating the stream of events" in a manner that leads to your obvious conclusion, how to fight back. Punctuation of events is what leads Israel and Palestine to always be attacking in retaliation to the others "first attack." Thus, any reciprocated violence by either side is morally justified. The result of this is easy to see in the history of the region. That's what it leads to.

However, if you simply connect this "attacked first" statement with the "felony murder" analysis in the same article, you might ask yourself:

To what extent did decisions and actions that the US government (not NYC citizens) took in the countries of origin of the 9-11 highjackers (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, let's say), which led in many instances to death and being deprived of the human rights and freedom so cherished by Americans at home, amount to the very felony murder you do eloquently defended? If the US was and is guilty of felony murder, then what should be the appropriate response of the world community, and in fact, of the United States itself?

In that case, they should fight us, we should fight them, and the side with the best and strongest army and navy should win. How's that sound? What could be more fair?

I have no interest any longer in hearing "moral equivalence" arguments, and "ask yourself why they hate you" arguments, and "but you ultimately brought this on yourself" arguments. I do not think that anything we have done justified, even slightly, what happened in NYC and Washington. I think that your argument is deeply flawed. I am not even slightly troubled by it. I do not claim that the US has been totally virtuous and has a spotlessly clean record in past events; but I claim that what we have done does not justify even slightly what happened to us.

To what extent etc.? Essentially none. I don't grant that premise.

The equivalent argument with respect to the two guys who got shot in Atlanta would be to try to ask whether the reason they were there, trying to rob the place, was because they were "victims of society" or some other reason. Once you begin to engage in that kind of analysis, you rapidly spiral into the ground and discover that no one is ever responsible for anything, because they're all reacting to something someone else did. I prefer to hold everyone responsible for what they do, and judge each, and to recognize that sometimes engaging in violence is wrong but sometimes it is right.

The robbers made a decision to commit armed robbery. That decision was wrong, and the surviving one is going to go to jail.

Adams made a decision to resist them. That decision was right, and I applaud him for it. And he isn't going to go to jail.

If the robbers needed money, there were other ways they could have gotten it. They didn't need to threaten a store clerk with death.

It's not that Adams is relieved of moral burden for what he did, but rather that his moral burden is heavy but that I think he did the right thing. The robbers set the rules of the game ("Life is cheap and unimportant") and Adams played by the rules they set and shot to kill. More power to him. For him to value their lives more than they valued the lives of him and his employees would have been wrong.

By the same token, al Qaeda made a decision to attack us in September, 2001. That decision was wrong.

The United States has made a decision to fight back to make sure there were no further attacks against us. That decision was right, and I fully support it.

Even if al Qaeda had legitimate grievances, there were other ways they could have been dealt with.

They set the rules of the game, the US is playing by them. al Qaeda decided to settle the issue using war; so the US has gone to war. The US carries a strong moral burden for that decision, but the decision we've made is the right one. I stand by it.

I don't like it. I hate war. War is terrible. But to refuse to fight in a case like this would be even more deeply evil.

There comes a point where "trying to understand why they did it" becomes an exercise in moral blindness and an excuse to avoid making hard decisions and taking sides. It isn't multiculturalism and intellectual sophistication, it's amorality.