When and Whether; Humanism and Murder

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Denker
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2004
Subject: FW: Watch this ... very powerful!
Dear C. et al:

I find the film you forwarded a link to very disturbing.

[ http://members.cox.net/classicweb/email.htm ] It is indeed, as you say, powerful. It made my hair stand up and tears come. Both the stirring quotes from some of the greatest minds in liberal and Enlightenment thought -- and then the pictures, which are heartbreaking beyond words. An extremely powerful reminder to put practice over theory and to sympathize rather than objectify, distance, forget. I can't express how deeply I sympathize with these sentiments.
But the alliance of these unimpeachable, timeless and critically important reminders with a narrow-minded political position regarding our war in Iraq is -- well, I should not say it's unforgivable. Of course it's forgivable. But it's very, very, very wrong: insulting and, more importantly, misleading and irresponsible. The juxtaposition of the quotes' calls to arms and the 9/11 photos made me very uncomfortable. If you clicked "info" below the film, you saw on the film's website what comes as little surprise: a partisan political position plumping for the war, where it said the film was made as a response to "nay-sayers whining about going to war to fight against terrorism."

The question for any self-respecting human, much less Humanist, is not WHETHER to fight against tyranny -- to alledge that this is so is vile and unacceptible. WHETHER is a question for the vicious and the ignorant. The question -- for all of us who are willing and capable to address it -- is HOW. Those who, as I do, criticize our making war on Iraq and the current Administration's foreign policy do so PRECISELY because we feel that these things are wholly contrary to the injunction of that film: that they are immoral, that they are dangerously misguided, that they are cowardly and irresponsible, that they are contrary to the principles of Liberty and the Patriotism that defends it, and that they will not bring peace to future generations, as Paine said, but more violence, more ignorance, more sorrow and more 9/11s. These are horrible thoughts, but as the film expressed, to refuse to think them is more horrible still.

I am not a pacifist, though I think that there are few very people -- too few -- who have the compassion, courage, patriotism, intelligence and hope superior to counter Martin Luther King's profoundly insightful cautions about violence. I am not a pacifist, though I think that too many of us, like children, would rather smash a problem than take the more difficult path of solving it. I am not a pacifist: Winston Churchill is my hero, as are the patriots and great thinkers of the Enlightenment, and I accept, much more than Dr. King, that some solutions require smashing. I believe that "There comes a time when even peaceful people have to fight," as the film's website argues -- and as Churchill argued, more powerfully and more respectfully, in a more dreadful hour. I supported our war -- it is a cowardly euphemism to call it an 'action' -- in Afghanistan. I support the war on terrorism. I support the curtailment of certain of our civil privileges -- I do not delude myself that they are natural 'rights' -- to fight this war.

I am not a pacifist. I accept that our war will involve the deaths of innocents -- deaths that stain us neither more nor less than the deaths of 9/11 stain their doers. Innocents died in Afghanistan, along with the patriots in our armed forces who fought that war. The deaths of innocents is the heaviest burden there is. It is murder necessary for what we argue to be the greater good. It is not damage to 'collateral' -- another cowardly euphemism. It is not an expense we pay with money, inconvenience or 'hardware' -- yet another cowardly euphemism -- but with our honor, our conscience, our soul. Our arguments had better be well-made. If they are not, we murder. This is why we make war when we "have to," as the film's website says, not when we're impatient.

Each and every one of us is responsible for thinking carefully about what "have to" means, especially when our souls and dearest principles lie in the balance. How 'clear and present' of a danger would you personally require to kill someone? You wouldn't kill them if they looked shifty. Would you kill them if they said "I hate you!" Would you kill them if they had a gun in their pocket? What if you weren't sure? We wage war as a nation. We have a professional army. These things make it easy for us to forget that when we vote and pay to wage war, we personally kill.

The film profoundly remembers and personalizes the horror of murder. We must also remember that God does not selectively issue souls along with certain national passports. It is disgusting beyond words to think that the heavy burdens of war could ever weigh more lightly on the shoulders of an American than on someone else's. They must not; they cannot. This, if nothing else, would define evil: there is no more succinct rejection of Liberty than to deny that all men and women are created equal.

And do they "weigh more lightly"? I don't know. Consider how we talk about war: action, collateral damage, hardware. Consider how we vote -- or worse, are selectively 'polled' by phone or at the shopping mall -- to wage it. Consider how we wage by far the deadliest part of it: from planes and from behind the computer screens that guide cruise missiles. Consider civilian dead: 9/11: 3,000; Second Iraq War: 10,000. But why do I compare those numbers? Consider the link between 9/11 and Iraq. Many people are 'considering' it today -- 10,000 civilian deaths after the fact. You and I justly murdered 10,000 people, for what you and I argued to be the greater good. We did; not some other citizens of some other free representative democracy. (Brush up on that argument; St. Peter will be asking for it.) Do the burdens of war "weigh more lightly" on our shoulders? I don't know. I do know that there is no more important question. We turn away from numbers like this. It's just a number. Don't. The film tells us: Don't turn away. Imagine those people -- not soldiers, not terrorists, innocent civilians -- falling from buildings, terrified or courageous, dying. "These are families," as the film said. "This is someone's daughter." If we feel less sympathy because the face on TV or in our imagination doesn't look like ours, shame on us for being nothing but racists. That argument won't go far with St. Peter. "Didn't you read the Bible?" he'll ask. "God made us all equal." It won't go any further with the 'Founding Fathers' whose principles we fight to defend. "Didn't you read the Declaration of Independence?"

I am not a "nay-sayer" to the courageous war against terror, evil, violence, ignorance and disrespect for liberty and the rule of law that guarantees it. I personally think that the current administration is doing, at best, a terrible job of prosecuting this war, and that, at worst, they are handing victory to the enemy and commiting our hands to murder. I may be wrong! God knows, I am freuquently. All I can do is make the specific arguments for my case, which I have here and elsewhere at greater length. But I am outraged at any implication that we "nay-sayers" are cowardly or forgetful.

I deeply respect and admire many of the sentiments and intentions of the man who made that film. Still, I suggest that arguments such as this are made, at best, in pain, and that, more sorrowfully, the man who made that film is not as big of a man as the men and women he seeks to honor. I pray that we all do our best not just to remember and salute heroes, but to be them. What it means to be a hero is one of the hardest problems any of us face in life; just facing it is heroic. Whatever 'heroism' means, I am sure of one thing: it means expending our own personal energy, not sitting back on the couch with opinions unexpressed in action. "Meaning," as Ludwig Wittgenstein said, "is use" -- or as Sartre famously said, "To be is to do." An unused opinion is not an opinion at all, but meaningless self-comfort, a dog licking its genitals. The film gets this insight very right and hits it very hard. Evil is not passive; heroism cannot be.

From Iraq to Mars

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 12:16 AM
Subject: Don't stop as long as I want you to stop

George Saunders' Exit Strategy From Slate

"Since it is clear that we cannot leave until they stop killing us, and
equally clear that they will not stop killing us until we leave, I propose the
following exit strategy:

1) Kill all the ones who are trying to kill us, in such a way that none
of those who presently do not want to kill us suddenly start wanting to kill
us.
2) At the moment of the death of the last person who wanted to kill us,
race quickly out of the country before some additional person suddenly decides
he/she wants to kill us, thus necessitating our continued presence in Iraq, in
order to kill him/her.
3) Having left Iraq quickly, do not look back, so as
not to witness individuals claiming they would have liked to kill us, which
would then necessitate a return to Iraq, in order to etc., etc. (See No. 2,
above.)

People of Iraq, I say to you:

Stop trying to kill us, so we can leave. But also, do not fear. We are
in it for the long haul, although we cannot stay with you indefinitely. No, as
soon as you stop trying to kill us, believe us, you will never see us again.
Therefore, trust us, people of Iraq, have faith, we assure you: As long as you
continue trying to kill us, we will never abandon you."

Typical liberal oversimplification. It's so much more complex than that. You clearly need a more powerful computer on which to run your human volition modeling software. You must bear in mind the global nature of the theater of operations in which the war on tourism takes place. It's not enough just to kill all the tourists in Iraq who want to kill us. If we stopped there, tourists the world over would have cause for celebration. And believe you me, they would act on that cause; tourism is a totalitarian political ideology without conscience. We have to kill all tourists everywhere who want to kill us. Then we pull out -- of everywhere. That's why we've got the Manned Mars Mission going. The President TOLD you we had a plan. Typical liberal media, misreporting everything. But recently I read an article about space tourism -- now that really makes me mad! Is nowhere safe? Oh those evil evildoers of evil. Next stop Ganymede. Last gas 2.8 billion miles.