Monday, March 15, 2004

War is how we know who the bad guys are

Brendan O'Neill: Gloating at Madrid's graveside:
". . . what kind of people define their mission, their political vision, their entire belief system, in response to bloody, meaningless, nihilistic murder?The war against terror is not some gallant battle for the twenty-first century; it is not the equivalent of the Second World War for today's generation of political leaders, as Tony Blair suggested. Rather, it is a projection of domestic uncertainty into the international arena; it is a search for clear battles between good and evil where none exists at home, a desperate attempt to find a higher moral plane somewhere - anywhere - when there is such deep moral and political uncertainty on the domestic front.
"Political leaders and pro-war commentators may not know what they are for or where they are heading or where they stand in the Culture Wars or what ever happened to tradition and morality or why every domestic initiative ends in crisis or why major institutions are always beset by scandal....but they do know one thing for certain. They Are Against Terrorism. They are opposed to mass murder, to nihilistic bombings, to the killing of 200 innocents as they travelled to work on a Thursday morning. This is the morality of the lowest common denominator, an empty political vision defined in response to empty terrorist acts. To paraphrase Tony Blair: 'It is as pathetic as the terrorists are opportunistic.'"
Thanks to Antiwar.com for its link to this terrific blog post.

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