[Peace-discuss] Limits of allowable debate

[David Green]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22wright.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

The NYT brings in Robert Wright, a liberal heavy thinker known among other things for his contributions to the dubious field of evolutionary psychology, to define the LOAD for Hasan/Ft. Hood:

"Conservatives backed war in Iraq, and they’re now backing an escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Liberals (at least, dovish liberals) have warned in both cases that killing terrorists is counterproductive if in the process you create even more terrorists; the object of the game isn’t to wipe out every last Islamist radical but rather to contain the virus of Islamist radicalism."
 
As long as we discuss various perspectives on "terrorism," we can't consider that this was not terrorism as commonly defined as attacks against civilians. Whatever the pathology of Hasan, we might compare him to a black soldier from segregated American asked to kill Asians (and perhaps return home to enforce martial law in Newark or Detroit) in the 1960s. What the LOAD will not allow us to do is to think of this event in terms of rebellion.
 
DG


      
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