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Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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We are not them
2) And then there's this little gem of a line of reasoning I hear all too often: "Because we're doing the right thing. So it doesn't happen here. So it doesn't follow us back. It's the lesser evil. It is necessary for us to survive. We're justified. We are not THEM!" You see, that's the mantra, which always centers on the idea that the person saying the mantra and by extension those fighting on behalf of the person saying the mantra are somehow morally superior to the people whose deaths are being shrugged off by said mantra. We are not THEM. Even if we do worse, we are not THEM. Now, I'm not a Muslim but there's a line in the Koran, (Forgive me if it's misspelled, there are many translations and they're spelled differently, same for the quotes) that I would find pertinent to a situations over the years. If those involved in such bloodshed had read and reflected on it and possessed a shred of conscience, it would cause them to slap themselves on the forehead. [2:11] When they are told, "Do not commit evil," they say, "But we are righteous." [2:12] In fact, they are evildoers, but they do not perceive. Yep. That's right. We're righteously doing exactly what we would call evil. Wait a second... D'oh! A lot of lines in the Koran can be taken hideously out of context and/or interpreted as a commandment to violence, especially the Suras containing information on the rules of engagement during wars, but this one I find crystal clear... assuming the Arabic to English translation is accurate. I know what some people are thinking right now, and this is exactly what was said to me when I not-so-tactfully expressed this realization about the rationale for the continued violence even by those who disagree with going into Iraq in the first place. "So you support the Terrorists then? You think what they're doing is right? You want to let them keep killing everyone?" No. Just... no. And neither do the people that are doing most of the dying, but they're stuck with the same dilemma with a lack of legal political recourse and repeat to themselves the same stupid mantra. "We are not THEM." Two men murder each other. Which one was the criminal? You only get to pick one. Vicious little circle, isn't it?
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