Selective Memory

[Richard Fiero]

The Great Quail wrote:
>>>From: "barbara100 at jps.net" <barbara100 at jps.net>
>>>
>>>I'm not sure exactly how many died in the WTC attack, but I 
>>>heard it reported yesterday on the radio that the numbers of 
>>>civilian casualties in Afghanistan have now surpassed the 
>>>number in the WTC attack.  I guess that makes it an official 'eye for an eye.'
>
>Barbara, this is the kind of statement that tends to undermine 
>your position, because it points to, more or less, a lack of 
>context as well as reason. No one thinks that we have launched 
>a bombing campaign against Afghani civilians, no one things 
>the terrible casualties are the result of an "official" eye 
>for an eye policy. You know very well that the war is an 
>attempt to break down and destroy the al-Qaeda terrorist 
>network, in hopes that they will be unable to plan, fund, and 
>carry out more attacks in their escalating campaign against 
>the United States and its civilian population. There is no 
>reason at all you can't maintain an anti-War stance and yet 
>refrain from this sort of unreasonable evasion of simple fact, 
>this emotional reductionism, where you flatten facts into some 
>brutal equation that you contend is the entire basis of 
>foreign policy. If you are going to protest the war, at least 
>make an effort to place your argument within some sphere of 
>reason! I hate to "lecture" you, and I suppose I am, but 
>really, it only makes your "side" look foolish, as foolish as 
>any hawkish redneck who says "bomb them all."
>
>--Quail

Sure.  See
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1113-03.htm
"A conservative academic group founded by Lynne Cheney, the 
wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, fired a new salvo in the 
culture wars by blasting 40 college professors as well as the 
president of Wesleyan University and others for not showing 
enough patriotism in the aftermath of Sept. 11. "

Quail, Quail, Quail.  I simply cannot follow your argument 
above.  I'm at a complete loss as to what the "loss of context" 
might be.  It seems to me that an ever-widening context would 
include a very large number of dead civilians at the hands of 
the U.S. and its proxies in the prosecution of war by other 
means.  I really don't think you'd want any mention of the 
total context.  I believe that you have dissociated yourself 
from those ugly details yet your tax dollars supported those 
efforts and your elected representatives planned and 
implemented those acts.  Oh, right.  Your take on Chomsky is 
negative because Chomsky reduces the supposed complexity to 
simple motives and bodies rather than over-intellectualizing 
and abstracting them away as Foucault did.  The folks in power 
are not hawkish rednecks but opportunists of the first order 
who have emptied the public treasury, suspended the Bill of 
Rights and are fighting terrorism with unspeakable 
terror.  Well, that's one way to do it.  The undeclared war 
proceeds and is constantly referred to as a "war against 
terrorism"  but appears more as a contest as to who holds a monopoly on terror.