In Which Kevin Drum Casually Disposes of the Lives of 18 Brown People
Kevin Drum committed a kind of intellectual self-immolation this week, and cordially invited the entire liberal blogosphere to watch. In response to the U.S. missile attack in Pakistan, he wrote:
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that we had pretty good intelligence telling us that a bunch of al-Qaeda leaders were in the house we bombed. And let’s also assume that we did indeed kill al-Masri and several other major al-Qaeda leaders. Finally, let’s assume that the 18 civilians killed in the attack were genuinely innocent bystanders with no connection to terrorists.
Question: Under those assumptions, was the attack justified? I think the answer is pretty plainly yes, but I’d sure like to see the liberal blogosphere discuss it.
What? He says yes? Yes, it’s “plainly” justified? He’s talking about the deaths of 18 innocent people. And we’re not even at war with Pakistan, so you can’t argue about the inevitable hazards of wartime and life in a combat zone.
Basically, Kevin’s saying that he thinks it’s justified to take out 18 innocent bystanders anywhere in the world, if that means we can also knock off a few members of al Qaeda.
Okay, how about this, Kevin:
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Let’s say we bombed a house in London, and killed 18 innocent Londoners along with the al Qaeda guys. Still justified?
Let’s say we bombed a house in Bethesda, Maryland, and killed 18 innocent Americans along with the al Qaeda guys. Still justified?
I didn’t think so.
So why is Kevin so sanguine about obliterating 18 Pakistanis? Is it because they’re brown? Because they’re Muslim? Because they probably don’t like the U.S. very much? Is it because, despite Kevin’s stated assumption that they’re “genuinely innocent with no connection to terrorists,” deep-down he’s lumping them in with all those other brown, Muslim, unfriendly people who are terrorists?
I doubt if Kevin Drum is a racist, but I think the answer is “pretty plainly yes” that for him, brown Muslims on the other side of the world are the Other. And war — all war, including most assuredly this unholy clusterfuck that Bush hath wrought — transforms the Other from human beings into objects. Targets, collateral damage. Things.
War has always done this, and must do this in order to continue. But traditional war with battlefields and front lines at least contains the damage to an identifiable geographic zone. Terrorism is so frightening precisely because it ignores boundaries, it strikes anywhere. Everyone, everywhere in the world, is a combatant. Everyone is a potential casualty.
The U.S. missile attack in Pakistan was terrorism. In fighting against terrorists, we are using terrorist tactics ourselves. And that, Kevin says, is perfectly justified. As long, of course, as it’s just brown Muslims getting blown up.
Just so we all understand what’s happening here.
(link via pharyngula)
9 Responses to “In Which Kevin Drum Casually Disposes of the Lives of 18 Brown People”
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Chris Clarke says:
And this is the kind of liberalism to which people like Kos would have us subordinate all our unimportant side issues.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:49 am EST -
will says:
Good points VioletS.
When I read everyone rush to say that this loss was ok, I wondered how people would think if such a missle from another country hit in the United States.
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Violet Socks says:
Chris, is there anything that Kos doesn’t consider an unimportant side issue to be subordinated?
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manxome says:
So straightforward and well-put.
I’m not sure how I got here, but I’m glad I did.
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Violet Socks says:
Thank you, manxome, and welcome to the blog!
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Alon Levy says:
And this is the kind of liberalism to which people like Kos would have us subordinate all our unimportant side issues.
“This” means Kevin Drum’s pseudo-liberalism, right?
Actually, this wasn’t an incident of terrorism. Terrorism means deliberately killing civilians to further a political goal; examples of US-sponsored terrorism include Strategic Bombing in World War Two (including the nuking of Japan), Nixon’s bombing of Hanoi, and the CIA-backed bombing of the Cuban passenger plane whose name I’ve forgotten. What the US did here was not terrorism, because it didn’t intend to kill civilians – it just didn’t care. A better word for what happened would be “criminal negligence,” or “manslaughter.”
Chris, is there anything that Kos doesn’t consider an unimportant side issue to be subordinated?
Winning elections, embarrassing Republicans, funding the Democratic Party, and obtaining power.
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Violet Socks says:
Alon, I am delighted to see you here. And I hope you will stop by regularly to quarrel with me about definitions! (I mean that sincerely — no snark.)
There’s no agreed-upon definition of terrorism, and even the deliberate killing of civilians isn’t universally included when people try to define what is and is not terrorism.
By the way, weren’t those al-Qaeda guys civilians? They weren’t soldiers. They were political enemies of ours, and no doubt criminals — but not soliders.
And that little village sure as hell was not a military target.
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Alon Levy says:
Thanks for the welcome, Violet (or is it Dr. Socks?).
I believe my definition comes from US Army manuals and is the one Chomsky uses when he calls the US a terrorist country.
I have to disagree with you about Al-Qaida: although it’s not a conventional army, in its own view it is waging war on the US, and in its tactics it’s reminiscent of guerilla warfare more than of crime. While this doesn’t mean the US is right to kill them when capture is possible, let alone kill civilians close to them, it does mean that bombing training camps or assassinating cell leaders is acceptable.
As for quarreling about definitions, I prefer not to do that, unless they’re charged, in which case I prefer to dispose of them completely (e.g. if I can’t reach a consensus with the person I’m debating over what freedom means, I would rather not use the word at all). I much prefer debates over substance, such as “Which foreign policy is most effective in combating terrorism while not hurting civilians?”, or “What restrictions should there be on free trade, if any?”.
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