“Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the le...aders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
The jingoist response is more interesting for the mindset it reveals. Even the merest suggestion that there could have been a peaceful settlement where bin Laden was turned over to the US for trial if evidence was provided of his guilt is dismissed because it "avoids justice entirely, and leaves his Taliban protectors untouched and as powerful as ever," and then equated, almost literally, with appeasement of Hitler.
I certainly agree that spending "years planning th emurder [sic] of hundreds in Africa and Yemen" and further plotting "the murder of thousands of innocents," then carrying out one or both of these plans, is criminal. I am wondering, would apply the same standards to your own government that you do to bin Laden?
There were other criminal actions over the past decade we could rightly condemn, for example, the invasion of Iraq, which left more than 650,000 dead, according to the most recent academic estimate ("Mortality after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cross-Sectional Cluster Sample Survey" http://www.sciencedirect.c
Considering the Iraq War has been a tragedy far worse than 9/11, do you also think that it would be appeasement for Muqtada al-Sadr to negotiate a peace treaty with the United States, as, in your view, it was for the United States to negotiate with the Taliban? Do you think that "the murder of thousands of innocents" is wrong when your government does it, or only when bin Laden does it? If the architect of the Iraq War, Bush, was offered over for trial to Iraq, would you reject this offer because it "avoids justice entirely, and leaves his [American] protectors untouched and as powerful as ever?"
I am wondering if "pro-American patriots" are an apologist for state violence, as long as the favored nation carries it out, or if you object to "the murder of thousands of innocents" because it is wrong. If you only object to bin Laden's criminal actions, and not to the American government's, I am hoping you could tell me why.
If you can't, then, how would they define "justice?"
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