Paris in Perspective

[markpkessinger]

What happened in Paris is an unspeakable horror, but no less horrific is the daily terror we have been raining down from the sky upon people across the Middle East for many years now. Some defend our "collateral damage" by pointing out that we "don't intend to target innocents" with our drone strikes. But that is a pretty weak defense, given that we target individuals while they are present at social gatherings -- weddings, funerals, etc. -- where we full well know innocent people will die in the strike. And in any case, I suspect that distinction between 'intended' and 'unintended' comes as cold comfort to any surviving family members.

The expressions of solidarity with and support for the people of Paris are commendable. But even as we make those gestures, we should, lest we become rather too righteous in both our sadness and our anger, remember that our own perceptions of 'innocence' are often skewed, our compassion and empathy not as universal as we like to tell ourselves, our outrage and indignation selective, and often quite conveniently so. I mean, when was the last time people en masse changed their Facebook avatars to the flag of Yemen, or gave such an outpouring of support for the people of that country, after one of our drone strikes took out dozens of innocent Yemeni citizens? Indeed, when was the last time anybody even gave a moment's thought of doing so?

[randys1]

1. ....

[melman]

2. When you put quotes on 'innocence'

that's a problem.

There's no way any of those people at the concert or restaurant were anything but innocent. Fuck anyone who says otherwise.

[markpkessinger]

4. I'm not suggesting they were not innocent . . .

. . . I am saying that many of the people we prefer to call "collateral damage" in our drone strikes and bombings are no less innocent. I put the word in quotations as a reminder of just how selective is our appreciation of innocence -- our own and others'.

[katsy]

3. What should we do?

Like it or not we are at war with an ideology.

IMO, there is no peaceable solution with ideologues that are barbaric, misogynistic, and cowardly all rolled up in a hopeless mess.

So they strike with terrorist attacks and then melt back into the innocent masses.

How do you suggest this war be fought?

Let them attack and not fight back? Seriously, tell me what, short of turning the other cheek, would make this stop? And what will be the cost to western society if we do turn the other cheek just to never harm an innocent.

Should we placate ISIL by adopting Islamic fundamentalism? Because they kill/behead infidels. Turn over the keys to Europe? Ridiculous. There is no amount of giving in to their demands that will save lives at this point. And unless we totally choke off their funding, even if we sanction the Saudis to get these bankers to freeze their accounts, this is a war we need to fight.

Let's not revisit the past 100 year history of region okay? Because like it or not... countries will do what's in their own best interest at the expense of others. Not fair but the U.N. is a good place to resolve differences for the most part. So mea culpa for the past wrongs now tell me how one is supposed to deal with a terrorist group that strikes and hides behind the innocent?

Fucking cowards. Yes innocents will be killed. ISIL doesn't negotiate for peace.

[markpkessinger]

6. If history tells us anything . . .

. . . it is that religious ideology cannot be overcome or dislodged by external force, be it in the form of civil oppression by a government of some of its people, or a military strike by a state. If anything, those measures taken against a particular sect have the effect of strengthening the resolve of that sect's adherents. What's more, that effect seems to operate independently of (a) whether such measures may be, in some sense, morally justifiable, or (b) whether the targeted sect did something that is pointed to as being the proximate cause of its being targeted. France may succeed -- although it is difficult to see how they will succeed where 13 years (or more, depending on how one looks at it) of military action by the U.S. has failed -- in neutralizing the particular organizational expression of an ideology known as ISIS. But military force by any Western power will ultimately fail to neutralize the underlying ideology, which will be strengthened, not weakened, by what may initially look like military success, and will soon find a new organizational expression.

As to your call for not revisiting "the 100 year history of region," I submit it is precisely that kind of willful blindness to the realities of the historical legacy -- realities that are very much present in the lives of the people of the region -- that leads the West down the same rabbit hole time and time again. In the eyes of people in the Middle East, the great wealth of the U.S. and of the former imperial powers of Western Europe has been attained through the exploitation of the people and resources of Middle Eastern nations, as well as other nations around the world, either through formal colonization or, in the case of the U.S. through activity undertaken by multinational corporations with the support of the U.s. government and military. And, "like it or not," there is considerable historical basis for that view. We can deny it all we want, but our denial will not change the underlying reality.

[kwassa]

9. Who is trying to overcome an ideology by force?

We are trying to overcome a force by force. That is why drone strikes are so successful, overall.

Our efforts will not strengthen that ideology; that is simply your projection as to what will happen.

[markpkessinger]

10. ISIS is founded in a particular extremist religious ideology . . .

. . . and even if we succeed in defeating ISIS, the organization, we are likely to create still more sympathizers of the underlying ideology in the process.

[kwassa]

16. I understand what you are saying, but I don't agree with it.

We would also be regarded as weak if we didn't respond to it, by those who respect only strength.

[Yorktown]

17. Extremist? ISIS is applying what the Quran says

As does Saudi Arabia or Iran. Stoning adulterers, chopping the hands of thieves.

They just differ on technicalities: Iran hangs gays, ISIS throws them off tall buildings.

There is no theological way to prove them wrong, contrarily to what CAIR pretends.

Conclusion: the root of the problem is religion.

[uppityperson]

31. I don't see it as trying to overcome an ideology by force, but to limit actions by force if needed

DAESH is welcome to believe what they want, they just aren't allowed to act on those beliefs.

Overcoming ideology takes the substitution of something more positive. Stop the jerks from hitting others, provide free secular education and health care for 20 yrs and it'd all change. I agree that trying to bomb or killl away an ideology doesn't work.

[katsy]

11. So you are basically saying we turn the other cheek?

That we apologize for our past transgressions and offer an olive branch?

Commit hundreds of thousands of moderate Muslims to the caliphate in return for peace?

The daesh will respond to kindness and understanding in kind?

Yes, history matters. I did not mean to belittle our role in what we now know as bad actions in the Middle East. But how can anyone use that history to justify these terrorist attacks. Should history condemn the western world to what degree? What should be our punishment? 10, 20 or more 911 type attacks? 50 more Paris attacks? When will the sins of our fathers be forgiven?

I don't think daesh is interested in resolution of our differences. They pretty much are committed to the destruction of anyone not aligned with their ideology. So from this one fact... please enlighten me as to how you would suggest western powers proceed.

[markpkessinger]

14. My original post wasn't even about how France or any other nation should or should not respond...

... but was rather about the very selective nature of our moral dudgeon. When innocent victims are citizens of Western countries whose culture we can more or less identify with, we're all about our moral outrage. But when they are citizens of countries or cultures we don't identify with, not so much.

But as to the question of how to respond, I'm not saying I know what the answer necessarily is. I do submit, however, that when 13 years of military action in the region has failed to yield anything other than the rise of ISIS, maybe it is time to recognize that a military approach is no more likely to succeed this time around than it has been for the past 13 years.

[katsy]

18. No. No "maybe" about it.

Daesh isn't negotiating peace.

They aren't making demands for anything. You either are their flavor of ideology or you die. They are very clear about their goals. They aren't going to sit at a negotiating table.

Daesh hasn't demanded justice for the tragedy of bush's war on Iraq. They don't care if we serve up dumbya on a platter to atone for his war crimes. They kill their own if their victims aren't radicalized enough. There is no way not to have civilian deaths by the way they're staging this war.

As to your perception that Muslim lives don't matter... Your perception. Not a fact at all. Rarely if ever have I read any op here that is callous toward the loss of innocent life. Don't make assumptions about others moral indignation when you don't know them.

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. You have a smart point about underlying ideology and organizational expression

as you're calling it.

Moreover, you're actually quite right that underlying ideologies will tend to find means of organizational expression. Your mistake is in thinking that organizational expressions are equally effective. Nazism as an ideology continues to have organizational expression. But the organizational expression has very little capacity to effect changes in the world. Certainly, compared to its previous organizational expression as instantiated in an institution of the state apparatus of the Third Reich, its current organizational expression when seen as an institutional power is infinitesimal. Tiny. Irrelevant.

The category you're really missing is institutional power, or rather, the institutional capacity of the organizational expression. Ideologies of all level of wackiness will find organizational expression even in the face of extreme pressure. Hell, there are meetings of 9/11 Truthers all over the place. The question is whether that organizational expression has institutional power.

The movement from ideology to organizational expression is probably inevitable. Flat Earthers come to mind. But the movement from organizational expression to institutional power is not at all inevitable, and is very sensitive to outside forces. That's where your whole argument crumbles. You mistake an expression for a power.

[Act_of_Reparation]

28. You gotta be fucking kidding me.

If history tells us anything it is that religious ideology cannot be overcome or dislodged by external force, be it in the form of civil oppression by a government of some of its people, or a military strike by a state.

If that's what history tells you, you're reading the wrong goddamned books. Christianity and Islam didn't become the world's most populous religions by asking nicely.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Don't worry, because one thing ISIS never does is target innocent public gatherings...

[markpkessinger]

7. So, whatever we do is okay as long as someone else did it first?

Wow.

[Blue_Tires]

34. You do realize certain people (who I won't name)

have downplayed, whitewashed (or indirectly justified) terrorist acts against the West because of Iraq, Libya, drones, or whatever?

So YOU tell ME who's playing the fuckin' "Someone else did it first" -card...

DU would do well to remember who the real enemy is here...

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. The new genre of the Tragedy Scold

It always goes, "Yes, however..."

[markpkessinger]

12. My apologies if moral complexity offends you n/t

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. Is that what you call it?

At least you're humble.

[Yorktown]

15. What a skewed perspective you present

Let's pretend ISIS is a legit country. It is de facto at war with its neighbors: Iraq, Kurdistan, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, you name it. Plenty of military targets. And ISIS does attack.

Now let's say that ISIS hypothetical country wants to lash back at western countries for supporting its enemies. Let's pretend their only choice is suicide missions in those countries for lack of a better choice. Why not target a small military base? Or even a police station, as a symbol of the power attacking them.

But shooting indiscriminately at concert goers? Civilians on a night out at the restaurant?
And you call this 'perspective'? You seem to be hellbent to find justifications for these guys.

And don't tell me you're trying to 'understand' why they did it. They did it because they are brainwashed. Period. And that brainwashing tells them anyone who doesn't submit to Islam is a legitimate target. And you want to put this in 'persepctive'?

To paraphrase Anton Ego in Ratatouille, I'm fresh out of perspective about guys killing civilians with AK47s.

[uppityperson]

20. +++++++

[markpkessinger]

21. My OP is neither a justification for the actions of ISIS ...

... nor a judgment of the relative morality of the response to ISIS or the response to those actions. The actions of ISIS in Paris and elsewhere are abhorrent, and no, I do not place them on a morally equivalent plane to actions taken by the U.S. and other countries in response. My OP is about the morally equivalent status of innocent persons, irrespective of any moral intent (or lack thereof) of those who killed them.

In a recent interview by Abbey Martin of Noam Chomsky, Ms. Martin raised the issue of innocent people who are killed in U.S. drone strikes. Chomsky turned the question around, asking "What about the intended targets? What gives the U.S. the right to carry out targeted assassinations of individuals on foreign soil, in clear violation of international law?" He pointed out that the U.S. has not confined its targets to those it believes have already carried out acts of terrorism, but has extended its targeting to those whom, for whatever reason, may in the future mount such attacks. Imagine, if you will, the reaction by Americans if ANY OTHER COUNTRY ON THE PLANET decided it had a right, at will, to target Americans on American soil whom that country believed had committed some act of violence against its people. Guilty or not, Americans would never stand for it. Such is the double standard and the hubris of empire.

[Yorktown]

23. Your OP says 'Paris in perspective'. Sorry, no perspective needed. Or welcome.

Your lengthy sentences fall flat in context.

At present, I could not care less if "Such is the double standard and the hubris of empire."

It is just intolerably irrelevant to mention 'perspective' about Paris. Period.

[RobertEarl]

22. Mark. Don't you get it?

It's ok if Empire does it. If you are not Empire, you bad.

Nice try here. But you are talking with Empire supporters.

[Yorktown]

24. It's ok if Empire does it??

OK. Just let me know when an evil 'Empire' deliberately mass murders civilians on purpose.

Your moral relativism is self serving and out of place when not all the Paris burials have yet taken place.

[RobertEarl]

25. No.

I said it is ok for some to support death and destruction of others if they are part of the Empire.

If you don't know how Empires get to be Empires, then I could see why you respond as you have.

[Yorktown]

26. So general Custer justifies ISIS shootings in Paris?

Because, apart from the extermination of American 'Indians', the US hardly qualifies as an Empire built on colonialism (save from a short stint in the Philippines).

[RobertEarl]

27. VietNam?

Central America.

Iraq. Etc.

[Yorktown]

29. VietNam was sound in principle, not in practice. And Iraq was just GW being an idiot.

North VietNam was a dictature ran by a small coterie of mad ideologues.
The South was corrupt, but a far preferable place to live than under Uncle Ho.
See how boat people voted once the North invaded.

This having been said, some of the methods employed by US troops were insane (agent orange)
But the objective was to help a democracy, however corrupt, against Communist colonialism.

Iraq? Colonialism? I wish it had been. At least, that would have been one understandable reason, greed. But no. Iraq was just one big, hugely stupid idea pushed by a handful of idiots for reasons that must have been so profoundly dumb the perpetrators have not owned up yet.


Anyway, whatever one's view on the justification or absence thereof of VietNam or Iraq, the US did not set about to deliberately murder civilians as such.

Which is what the ISIS guys did.

[RobertEarl]

32. That is some revision of History you have

American Empire has done some dastardly things to people who didn't even know what America was. Of course Empire sold you that what they did was for your own good. Some of us bought it, some of us do not.

Again, you are the type I was talking about: A supporter of Empire thinks whatever Empire has to do is ok.

As for Iraq... oil went from 30 a barrel to over 100. Now it's back to 40 and the oil people are hurting, when last year they were raking in the dough and laughing all the way to the bank. So don't sit there and tell me there was no greed involved. I ain't stupid, so quit talking that way. OK?

[Yorktown]

33. I did not say you were stupid, I said GW was

If you think, or if he thought Iraq would yield an oil bonanza, it was a miscalculation.

About the price of oil, here is an academic paper which states "the increase in the real price of oil from 2002 until mid-2008 was driven by a series of positive aggregate demand shocks associated with shifts in global economic activity. Oil supply shocks played no role."
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Projects/BPEA/Spring%202009/2009a_bpea_hamilton.PDF

In other words, the invasion of Iraq did not create any bonus for oil companies.

[Catherina]

30. Thank you for one of the few sane OPs about this

There are a few countries missing... such as Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Sudan, Central African Republic, Palestine, but the image captures what many decent people feel right now.

[LanternWaste]

35. It seems the very definition of hubris to instruct others on when to mourn.

It seems the very definition of hubris to instruct others on when to mourn. And all your rationalizations aside, that is precisely what you have written.