Hard to be a pacifist
By Mustang Bobby
After hearing about another execution of an American journalist held hostage by ISIS, the visceral reaction comes easily. Even the most even-tempered and non-violent soul finds the gorge rising in their throat and the simple solutions easily form in the mind: "Find them, kill them, and make sure they know who did it and why."
We have the forces; we have the means and the power to hunt down these wretched fanatics and grind them to powder. There is no place on the planet they can hide. We got bin Laden, so why can't we marshal all the secret weapons and black ops teams like the ones we see on TV? Why isn't a bullet between the eyes the way to do it?
Because it's what they want. It is what they are counting on. To ISIS and al-Qaeda, life is expendable and replaceable. One more dead leader to them means they replace him with another; one more drone attack by us furthers their cause and draws new men to their cause. We have been taking out their leaders since before we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and still they grow. We took out the most hunted man in the world and that hasn't stopped them from replacing him.
We are seeing the consequences of being goaded into war. We are seeing the result of generations of exploitation and lorded-over exceptionalism and self-styled supremacy. The attacks against the West are not because we are not Muslim; they attack people of their own faith. They are using religion as a facade in the same way a bigot uses the bible to justify racism, homophobia, and misogyny, and they allow their visceral hatred of those that bullied them to control their actions as well. Their only hope is that we will respond in kind. And we have.
We have given them what they want: attention and aggression. The difference is that we have our limits and they do not because they believe they have nothing left to lose. They also know there are powerful voices in America and the West who counsel peace and standing down the war machinery. They hope those voices will be drowned out by the chants for war and blood and vengeance.
It is hard to resist the urge to destroy those who hate us. But one hundred years of war and tension and world-wide suffering have not brought the peace. War breeds more war, and those of us who struggle to keep our rage in check must prevail so that a calculated act of unspeakable cruelty is not met with the same. Because it only leads to more blood, more sorrow and another hundred years of human misery wrought by miserable humans.
No, I don't know the answer. Peace has never been easy or a bargain; you have to pay for it. It means overcoming prejudice and tribalism, two of nature's more powerful visceral instincts. If we cannot overcome them, the least we can do is control them and not let the epitaph of humanity be "It all started when they hit us back."
(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)
After hearing about another execution of an American journalist held hostage by ISIS, the visceral reaction comes easily. Even the most even-tempered and non-violent soul finds the gorge rising in their throat and the simple solutions easily form in the mind: "Find them, kill them, and make sure they know who did it and why."
We have the forces; we have the means and the power to hunt down these wretched fanatics and grind them to powder. There is no place on the planet they can hide. We got bin Laden, so why can't we marshal all the secret weapons and black ops teams like the ones we see on TV? Why isn't a bullet between the eyes the way to do it?
Because it's what they want. It is what they are counting on. To ISIS and al-Qaeda, life is expendable and replaceable. One more dead leader to them means they replace him with another; one more drone attack by us furthers their cause and draws new men to their cause. We have been taking out their leaders since before we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and still they grow. We took out the most hunted man in the world and that hasn't stopped them from replacing him.
We are seeing the consequences of being goaded into war. We are seeing the result of generations of exploitation and lorded-over exceptionalism and self-styled supremacy. The attacks against the West are not because we are not Muslim; they attack people of their own faith. They are using religion as a facade in the same way a bigot uses the bible to justify racism, homophobia, and misogyny, and they allow their visceral hatred of those that bullied them to control their actions as well. Their only hope is that we will respond in kind. And we have.
We have given them what they want: attention and aggression. The difference is that we have our limits and they do not because they believe they have nothing left to lose. They also know there are powerful voices in America and the West who counsel peace and standing down the war machinery. They hope those voices will be drowned out by the chants for war and blood and vengeance.
It is hard to resist the urge to destroy those who hate us. But one hundred years of war and tension and world-wide suffering have not brought the peace. War breeds more war, and those of us who struggle to keep our rage in check must prevail so that a calculated act of unspeakable cruelty is not met with the same. Because it only leads to more blood, more sorrow and another hundred years of human misery wrought by miserable humans.
No, I don't know the answer. Peace has never been easy or a bargain; you have to pay for it. It means overcoming prejudice and tribalism, two of nature's more powerful visceral instincts. If we cannot overcome them, the least we can do is control them and not let the epitaph of humanity be "It all started when they hit us back."
(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)
Labels: Islamic extremism, pacifism, terrorism
posted by Mustang Bobby at
6:16 PM
2 Comments:
Yes, but it's to the point where this war hater dreams of vast areas of molten radioactive glass and wakes up smiling.
I think somebody has to destroy them but that it has to be a Muslim somebody. I'm not sure there's any hope of that.
By
Capt. Fogg, at 11:05 AM
re:
>>It is hard to resist the urge to
>>destroy those who hate us
It's important to remember that, although they do hate us, it's not for the reasons that idiots like Bush claimed. They don't hate us for "our freedoms." They hate us for our actions. And a lot of those actions are completely unknown to the U.S. public (such as the nullification of the 1991 Algerian elections, which came about via behind-the-scenes pressure from the West).
By
Marc McDonald, at 1:48 AM
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