Fighting the forces of Invisibility

[David Simpson]

"Otto" wrote:

Rushdie:

"Terrorism is the murder of the innocent"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55876-2001Oct1.html

This is no statement exclusively on the WTC-attack, this is a general
statement by Rushdie. So he logically says the accepted death of those
500.000 Iraqui kids (worth the price, just an inevitable collateral
damage
according to Dave Morris) was terrorism too.

Lot of hypocrisy in these pro-war posts, unable to take a wider
perspective
by simply blaming the "stupid" pacifists for terrorism and war. Some
voices
are echoing in my head:

--
If you don't know or recognize the difference between terrorist "murder"
-- the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians -- and "casualties of
war" -- the admittedly horrible, but still accidental and unintentional,
loss of civilian life in a poorly executed wartime attack -- you are a
moral imbecile of the first stripe. Rushdie was using the term "murder"
advisedly, precisely to preclude casuistical persiflage like your
comments above.

By the way, I'm hardly "pro-war." I'm a Vietnam vet who's very much
against it.-- though I'm even more against your style of angelic
rhetoric and smug righteousness.

--
"My genius is in my nostrils. I smell out lies." -- Nietzsche.
--
Home Page: http://www.depaul.edu/~dsimpson