Comments on: Whom will they blame this time?

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 15:00:56 +0000

Once you cede that the US is not merely part of the causal chain that led to this event, but “responsible” for it, the actual perpetrators begin to slide off the hook What is your basis for saying this, George? This topic has been getting batted around on in this thread for awhile now, and I have yet to see a convincing argument for this zero-sum conception of responsibility. I really don’t find it that hard to wrap my head around the notion that while the perpetrators of the bombings are fully responsible for their inexcusable actions, a certain degree of responsibility (or if you prefer, I’ll use the hot-button term: blame) must be laid at the feet of the superpower that has voluntarily taken on responsibility for the security of the Iraqi people. Seems to me that the alternative is to let the Bush administration “slide off the hook” entirely—you say that’s not where you’re going with this argument, but I don’t see any other outcome.

By: abb1

abb1 — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 08:28:37 +0000

Mourning Iraqis Blame U.S. Troops … Residents said that before the start of the celebration, U.S. soldiers called upon the children through loudspeakers to join the crowd, promising them sweets. There were an unusually large number around because the long school holidays were nearing an end. “I blame the Americans for this tragedy. They wanted to make human shields out of our children. They should have kept the children away from danger,’’ said Abdel-Hadi al-Badri, a cleric a the al-Mubashroun al-Ashra mosque, breaking down in tears during Friday prayers. Al-Badri’s son lost his right leg in the explosion after he ignored his father’s warnings to stay away from the U.S. troops. …

By: ruralsaturday

ruralsaturday — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 08:25:05 +0000

You tell ‘em George. You go tell those women and children they’re pulling out of the rubble in Fallujah every day,too. And those young American soldiers coming back from Iraq, the ones that are killing themselves because they can’t live with what they’ve seen and done, you tell ‘em buddy, you tell ‘em good. Deep pockets oh yeah. That’s what it is, litigation with bombs and rockets. Just be sure to keep on message there George, don’t whatever you do start talking about what’s really happening in the Middle East, and in America. Can’t have that. Bad for the economy.

By: George

George — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 23:22:03 +0000

Late to the party, as usual, but: From the POV of strict causality, the US is “responsible” for a zillion things, good and bad, happening every day, that can be said to have been triggered by something we did or did not do. At this very moment, the US is “causing” the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Africans in Darfur because it is in our power to mount an armed intervention, and we aren’t doing so. But given that the Sudanese government (which is actually reasonably well armed) says it would treat any humanitarian intervention as war, that action would itself likely kill thousands of people, both Africans and Americans. In fact it would a lot like….the invasion of Iraq. Of course there’s a qualitative difference between sins of commission and sins of omission, but in the real world you do have to evaluate not just the consequences of your actions, but the alternatives to acting, and the consequences of those. This is not exonerate everything the US has done in Iraq. I do have my own opinions, but that is a separate matter from this argument. The reason people can be sensitive about who gets the “blame” in a situation like this is that many observers will not be as morally discerning as the philosopher-would-be-kings at CT (and I’m sure all their commentors) are. Once you cede that the US is not merely part of the causal chain that led to this event, but “responsible” for it, the actual perpetrators begin to slide off the hook—not least because, being conveniently absent, they can’t actually be brought to justice. At that point it just becomes a question of who’s got the deepest moral pockets.

By: abb1

abb1 — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 21:06:45 +0000

Freed Italian Hostage Says Iraq Rebels ‘Justified’

ROME (Reuters) – An Italian aid worker held hostage last month in Iraq said guerrillas there were right to fight U.S.-led forces and their Iraqi “puppet government.” In comments that were bound to annoy Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government, Simona Torretta also called on Rome to withdraw the troops it sent to Iraq to support its U.S. ally. “I said it before the kidnapping and I repeat it today,” she told Corriere della Sera newspaper in an interview published Friday. “You have to distinguish between terrorism and resistance. The guerrilla war is justified, but I am against the kidnapping of civilians.” [...] Torretta, who lived in Iraq before, during and after the U.S.-led invasion, said she wanted to return despite her ordeal—but would not do so as long as U.S. troops were there: “I’ve got to wait until the end of the U.S. occupation,” she said. She said she did know whether Italy bought her freedom from the kidnappers: “If a ransom was paid then I am very sorry. But I know nothing about it … I believe that (the kidnappers) were a very political, religious group and that in the end they were convinced that we were not enemies.”

By: mona

mona — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 20:14:35 +0000

” I pointed out that if that claim is true, then it will follow that governments which relax abortion laws will be responsible for the pro-life fanatics who murder abortion clinic staff.” Well, eve, I’m pointing out that is complete and utter nonsense. What I don’t understand is how you can make that kind of comparison in the first place. Taking military and political control of another country after toppling its regime is a decision that is very different from legislating on abortion or immigration – the latter especially is something every country allows, you know? The relation of a rise in fanatics murdering doctors or immigrants to those ordinary legislations is also completely different from the relation of a rise in terrorism to the management of security and politics and military etc. which is a very very close relation. Legislators have no responsibility whatsoever on fanatics taking their opposition to those laws to extremes of murder. But a military and political force controlling a country has responsibility to ensure the best is being done to prevent and reduce terrorism rather than increase it, because it’s one of their main direct responsibilities, especially in the context of rebuilding a country after a war. Does it even have to be spelt out? I mean, how can you not see it yourself? That’s so not “precisely” the same situation. Observing the failure to stop terrorists from neighbouring countries does not absolve terrorists from the crimes they commit. It’s simply observing – no matter what one thinks of the war in the first place – that it’s a disastrous policy. That kind of criticism happens all the time, when people hold authorities accountable . The existence of criminals doesn’t make the police blameless for any possible screwup or failure, the existence of terrorism doesn’t make those responsible for policies against it unaccountable. Unless you’re Putin. If you don’t like that implication, which I don’t myself and presume Chris doesn’t either, then you have reason not to endorse the original claim. That is a false dichotomy you set up, to which Chris has already replied. You can’t keep repeating it ad nauseam, it doesn’t make it any less irrational. That’s why my argument is a criticism of that claim – it shows that the claim has an unacceptable implication Nope, it shows you are attaching to it arbitrary implications by making arbitrary comparisons. Either the unwelcome implication isn’t implied, or the original claim is unsatisfactory. That’s how the reasoning goes. There you go, either/or, that’s something you set up yourself, how is that not reductive binary thinking, how is it not absurd? This is not “shouting”, eve, it’s called discussing, and it involves some basic honesty and logic, if you’re not used to it, its not my problem. My problem instead is that I should have heeded Matt Yglesias’s advice.

By: Eve Garrard

Eve Garrard — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 19:26:59 +0000

Mona, you’re correct in thinking that you don’t understand the logic of the argument. It goes like this: Chris claimed that governnments are responsible if their policies bring about situations in which crazy fanatics attack innocent people. I pointed out that if that claim is true, then it will follow that governments which relax abortion laws will be responsible for the pro-life fanatics who murder abortion clinic staff. That’s because such governments would be in precisely the situation described by Chris as generating responsibility for fanatics killing innocents. If you don’t like that implication, which I don’t myself and presume Chris doesn’t either, then you have reason not to endorse the original claim. That’s why my argument is a criticism of that claim – it shows that the claim has an unacceptable implication. If you don’t like that conclusion, then you have to show why the unwanted implication about abortion law reform doesn’t follow from Chris’s original claim. Either the unwelcome implication isn’t implied, or the original claim is unsatisfactory. That’s how the reasoning goes. You won’t show what (if anything)is wrong with it by shouting loudly about twisted logic or absurd binaries.

By: abb1

abb1 — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 17:41:11 +0000

…not any concrete example of anyone who actually supports such terror tactcs… . …John Pilger, Tariq Ali, the Socialist Worker, at least two commenters above… Peter, if we follow your logic here, we’ll have to conclude that Bill Kristol, Washington Times and a couple of commenters above (including you) must support tactics used in Abu Ghraib. I don’t accuse you or Mr. Kristol of supporting these atrocities and I doubt that John Pilger and Tariq Ali would. You shouldn’t be accusing John Pilger and Tariq Ali of supporting atrocities either.

By: mona

mona — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 16:41:20 +0000

“So it looks as if you think…” No. It looks like what I wrote, which is not what you’re trying to make me say, which I don’t even understand as I don’t quite follow the twisted logic by which murders of doctors who practice abortion could ever be blamed on a law sanctioning abortion, or murdering immigrants can be blamed on… the existence of immigrants in the first place! Seriously, what kind of reasoning is that? You might as well blame murder on the existence of the murdered. If they didn’t exist, they wouldn’t be murdered. Are you seriously saying that the premise for criticism of the US policy in Iraq is that totally insane? Also no one said the “governments who fail etc. , are responsible for what the fanatics do” – you’ve read repeated reassertions of the obvious, that the responsibility is the terrorists’s, which no one disagrees with, but, in a normal, rational context in which not everything has to be either/or and 100% or 0%, the right to criticising a government’s or military power’s handling of a situation in which terrorists thrive is a simple right to criticise a policy, it’s pathetic to see it as excusing terrorists. In every country people have the right to criticise the army, the police, authorities, intelligence, etc. no matter who they are dealing with. Surely no one would suggest criticising a government’s failure to deal effectively with criminals is… motivated by sympathy or support for said criminals. Jesus. You don’t hear drug traffickers complaining that governments are failing to stop drug trafficking, do you? Why would complaining about policies that fail to prevent or minimise terrorism be about justifying terrorism rather than being genuinely concerned about it? As I originally argued, this amounts to saying that the Iraq government and its allies aren’t responsible unless we’ve already decided that the intervention in Iraq was wrong. No. As I originally argued, the criticism of the current policies is largely independent of one’s opinions on the justification for war in the first place. Shall we go around in circles on that, or can you maybe take it in? How can the US and the interim government be not responsible for handling the situation in a country they’re running? not even one little bit? You are, however, mistaken in thinking that I’m here arguing that that intervention was right (although I certainly think it was). Er, so where would that be mistaken? But no, I wasn’t even thinking you were arguing that, it was to illustrate that your insisting that in order to criticise the current policy one has to have been against the war from the start is plain wrong. You don’t need to be against the war to criticise how the situation is being handled now, and there’s been tons of instances of that also from officials and military people who sure weren’t anti-war. You can’t keep reducing every opinion in the world to such absurd binaries. I’m rather investigating the implications of Chris’s original claim, and Daniel’s development of it, and arguing that the principles they’re drawn to have implications which they may not want to endorse, and that this casts doubt on the plausibility of those claims. ie. you’re projecting implications that weren’t there in Chris’s claim, reducing everything to A or Z, making impossible comparisons, twisting and reducing the meaning of responsibility to something absurd, and attacking ridiculous straw men. That’s what you’re doing.

By: roger

roger — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 15:41:38 +0000

There are some odd ideas of responsibility running through the above comments. Surely, if a group of soldiers used children as shields during a battle, we would hold them responsible for endangering the lives of kids. Surely, in a city that has been wracked with car bombings, soldiers who specifically invite children to an open meeting have a responsibility not to put them in hazard. This is called due diligence. On a larger plane, responsibility implies a certain agency and power that is notably lacking in the supposed “sovereign’ government represented by Allawi. Allawi’s government is surely not responsible for, example, the “surgical strikes’ of the American air force in Sadr City. Surgical, here, should conjure up Jack the Ripper rather than Dr. Kildare—they are really the hi tech equivalent of car bombings. So, on the one hand we have an army incapable of protecting civilians, and on the other hand we have that army targetting them. It is this sort of thing that leads to the collapse of state power. This isn’t just a dissident, anti-war view. It is the view of, among others, the president of Iraq, waccording to yesterday’s LA Times: “Drawing a parallel between U.S. tactics in Iraq and Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, President Ghazi Ajil Yawer said the U.S. strikes were viewed by the Iraqi people as “collective punishment” against towns and neighborhoods. “Footage of injured and dead women and children being pulled from bombed buildings “brings to mind Gaza,” Yawer said in an interview on CNN.”

By: Eve Garrard

Eve Garrard — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 15:13:58 +0000

Mona, you say ’ the concept is failing to provide security, failing to contain something, failing to exercise your control of a situation you are supposed to be managing. Failure, out of deliberate intent or incompetence or mismanagement or just having a set of priorities that led to that scenario….Not “unintended and unrelated consequences of good actions”, as you very slyly turned it around.’ So it looks as if you think that governments who fail to control the situation deliberately, or through incompetence, or failure to prioritise anti-fanatical measures, are responsible for what the fanatics do, but not where the fanatical activities are the unintended and unrelated consequences of good actions. That’s still going to leave governments who relax abortion laws as being responsible for the doings of pro-life murderers, since those murders are certainly not unrelated to the relaxation in the law; and similarly with governments who admit immigrants – they’ll be responsible for attacks on immigrants by local fascists, since these attacks are also not unrelated to the immigration policy. This just leaves you with ‘unintended consequences of good actions’ as the conditions in which governments aren’t responsible for fanatical attacks. As I originally argued, this amounts to saying that the Iraq government and its allies aren’t responsible unless we’ve already decided that the intervention in Iraq was wrong. You are, however, mistaken in thinking that I’m here arguing that that intervention was right (although I certainly think it was). I’m rather investigating the implications of Chris’s original claim, and Daniel’s development of it, and arguing that the principles they’re drawn to have implications which they may not want to endorse, and that this casts doubt on the plausibility of those claims.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 14:52:39 +0000

John Pilger, Tariq Ali, the Socialist Worker, at least two commenters above …

By: rea

rea — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 13:49:42 +0000

“’Western supporters of the Iraqi “resistance”’ Who the bloody hell are these people supposed to be?”—rea “As long as we have to put up with psuedo-leftists in the Guardian every other day expressing support for this resistance . . .”—Harry You note he responds with more of the usual general hand-waving in the direction of the left, not any concrete example of anyone who actually supports such terror tactcs.

By: mona

mona — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 10:45:52 +0000

“it would mean that any government whose control of the country is effectively challenged by murderous fanatics is thereby responsible for the fanatical killings.” No, eve, this is not “any government”, this is an interim government that has taken the place of a dictatorship that was overthrown militarily with the purpose of making that country safer in the context of a war against terrorism. What do you find objectionable or confusing about the concept that that government is supposed to do its job, and that the force who overthrew a dictatorship needs to do its best to guarantee stability and security, if that was their intent? Criticising failures to do so can only be read as “finding excuses for terrorism” in the most preposterous binary thinking. It’s not even the occurring of terrorist bombings in itself that speaks of failures, it’s the conditions in which terrorist groups have managed to arise and gain control. To say that more should have been done to prevent that is to a large extent even independent of opinions on whether the war was justified or not. “But that principle will only apply to Iraq if you already believe that the intervention there was wrong” Not necessarily, again, unless your entire concern is to the opposite – to argue that the intervention was right “therefore” there’s no responsibility for chaos other than the terrorists’. ” it can’t provide a reason for forming that belief.” Not exclusively so, when judgement on the intervention was formed before, but it can provide a reason for forming the belief that the intervention hasn’t been managed properly. On the other hand, the presence of terrorism cannot provide a reason for forming the belief that the intervention was right, and therefore those who managed and are managing it are automagically absolved of all resulting problems and need not be accountable or criticised, because they’re only victims of something they have no control over. What kind of idea of authority is that?

By: mona

mona — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 10:22:25 +0000

eve garrard – “Do you agree that governments which relax abortion laws are responsible for pro-lifers who take potshots at staff in abortion clinics; that those in South Africa who overthrew apartheid are responsible for the soaring murder rate there” Huh? how on earth does that compare? Chris made a comparison with the amnesty on sex offenders scenario, the concept is failing to provide security, failing to contain something, failing to exercise your control of a situation you are supposed to be managing. Failure, out of deliberate intent or incompetence or mismanagement or just having a set of priorities that led to that scenario. Not “unintended and unrelated consequences of good actions”, as you very slyly turned it around. Failing to provide security also means leaving the borders open for terrorists to come in from neighbouring countries, failing to capture terrorist leaders when there was the chance to do so, failing to avoid giving terrorists more pretexts to strike, failing to control entire areas you’re supposed to control, etc. If you’re going to do an invasion you’re supposed to do it properly, I don’t see how even supporters of the war can avoid seeing that unless the entire point of interest for them is terrorism as a retro-active justification for war in the first place. You want everyone to agree with you that the intervention in Iraq was indisputably good and that the rise of terrorism after it is only an accidental unfortunate side-effect with no relation to how the military intervention has been managed initially, ok, let’s stretch that far – but it still doesn’t mean that because terrorists are obviously directly responsible for what they do, the government and military who is supposed to deal with that situation now is blameless or unaccountable or uncriticisable. Get out of that either/or trap or at least, don’t put everybody else in it.