Right-Wing Inconsistencies. In two places today, an op-ed column and an editorial, the New York Post shows the self-confuting lack of principle of the Radical Right.
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Deborah Orin wants us to feel sympathy for "seven Iraqi men whose right hands got chopped off on Saddam Hussein's orders on charges of trading in U.S. dollars. Chopped off by doctors in an obscene travesty of medicine, but so sloppily that they were in constant pain." So, what she's saying is that severe punishment for criminals is evil. They knew the law; they defied it; they paid the price. Their right hands were removed surgically, not by ax or guillotine.
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Is Ms. Orin saying that it's alrite to defy the law? Or that laws shouldn't be severe? Or that punishments threatened shouldn't actually be imposed?
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Contrast the Post's own editorialists in the same issue, happy about the British government's arrest of an accused terrorist but indignant that that same government might not extradite him for trial in the U.S. because the U.S. has the DEATH PENALTY!
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The Post wants us to be indignant that Saddam's Iraq imposed amputation of the right hand for the crime of black-market currency trading but equally indignant that the British government won't let us kill a "terrorist". The Post regards amputation of a hand as impermissibly savage; the British government regards the death penalty as impermissibly savage.
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And what exactly does the Post want us to kill this Moslem cleric for? He "provided material aid to both al Qaeda and the Taliban" and "act[ed] as an intermediary" for terrorists who kidnapped and killed some tourists in Yemen. (Hmm. Don't a lot of journalists act as intermediaries in hostage situations? Should we kill them, and police negotiators while we're at it?) He "tr[ied] to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon" - but didn't. The Post says, "New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday: 'Think of him as a freelance consultant to terrorist groups worldwide.'" Did he kill anyone? Apparently not. But he still deserves to die, says the Post (just as Saddam thought black-market currency traders subverting Iraq's own currency deserved to have their right hand amputated). The British government begs to differ.
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Let's talk about governments for a minute. The Post has cheered enthusiastically the U.S. Government's overthrow of Saddam's government in Iraq, 6,000 miles away, and the Taliban government of Afghanistan, 7,000 miles away, but we have laws against the overthrow of the U.S. Government right here at home. Why? If it's okay for us, a bunch of foreigners, violently to overthrow governments thousands of miles from home, (a) why would it wrong for foreigners to overthrow our government and (b) why does our government suggest it is wrong for us violently to overthrow the U.S. Government?
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Oh, we pretend that our government is different; it is 'chosen by the people'. But more of "the people" - the sacred, hallowed people - chose Al Gore to be President than chose George Bush, yet George Bush is President. How could that happen if the people choose our government? And if the people did NOT choose our President, why is it wrong to overthrow him and, if need be, kill him and everyone around him to do so? We overthrew Saddam's government and the Taliban government and killed everybody who tried to stop us. What's different?
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Moral inconsistency is called "hypocrisy", and the human mind rebels at hypocrisy. U.S. law forbids a number of things out of practical concerns over consistency. We are not supposed to assassinate foreign leaders, for instance, because that would naturally open us up to assassination of our own leaders as a legitimate act that springs instantly to mind in governments all over the world. We don't want death squads from 100 countries targeting our President, so we have a public stance that we won't assassinate foreign leaders, even Fidel Castro.
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Rather, we go to war and instead of neatly killing only Saddam, we kill tens of thousands of Iraqis, destroy their infrastructure, schools, and hospitals, and pretend that that's okay. But when Moslems indignant about U.S. arrogance and cruelty in the Mideast destroy some of our infrastructure and kill a few thousand of us, we act with horror and rage. And all the while we can't for an instant put ourselves in their place to see why they act from rage against us.
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There is an oft-quoted phrase from American Indians: "Do not judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins." Americans seem intent on refusing even to think about what life is like for Palestinians under the brutal occupation of their country, stolen right out from under them by foreign Jews sent there by the British empire and subsidized in their occupation by Americans.
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When those helicopter gunships rain death and destruction from the sky upon leaders and children without distinction, and the U.S. built and paid for those helicopters, is it any mystery that people who do identify with Palestinians want us all dead?
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Exert yourself mentally to imagine what it must be like to live as Palestinians live, under the hobnailed boot of the Israeli government, backed 100% by the U.S. government, media, and electorate in every murder they commit. Imagine living in a crummy apartment in a refugee camp that is regularly attacked by the Israeli army, using U.S. weapons and U.S. ammunition. You have no job, because the economy is a shambles because Israel won't let you set up a business or establish trade with other countries. If you find a job, it is as a low-paid unskilled laborer in Israel - little more than a slave - and many times a year the Israeli Government closes the border (a border between one part of your country and another) and forbids you to go to work, so you lose pay when the miserable wages you make are not enuf to live well on to begin with.
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The Israelis have not only stolen most of your land but they have also built a wall to keep you from even seeing it, a "Berlin Wall" that the U.S. Government, so indignant about the German Berlin Wall, actually smiles upon!
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Your kids go to substandard schools, and the Israelis regularly shut down those schools and universities for days, weeks, even months at a time. The Israelis shut off water to your neighborhood for days at a time - in a desert. If your teenager demonstrates against Israeli abuses, he is shot with live ammunition or with rubber or plastic bullets that can maim or even kill. You watch TV, and see that Israelis who demonstrate are sprayed with water! not bullets of any type. You are white niggers in 1950 Mississippi, and the U.S. Government sends help not to the civil-rights workers but to the KKK.
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So when the New York Post claims, editorially, that "Saudi-based Wahhabi extremism, which seeks to hijack mainstream Islam and wreak worldwide vengeance against its enemies, is the true root cause of terrorism in the world today", don't you believe it. The real root cause of terrorism in the world today is Israel's criminal mistreatment of Arabs, because, you see, Arabs and other Moslems worldwide really can walk a mile in the moccasins of Palestine. If we did too, and ended our support for ZIONAZISM, we would cease to be "enemies" of the Moslem world, and extremist incitements of Wahhabi preachers would fall on deaf ears. (Responsive to "The Real Deal" and "Hands of Hope", New York Post, May 28, 2004)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 12:05 PM