MDMD: Lambton Worm

[davemarc]

From: Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com>

> I agree with davemarc, those terrorists are bad guys and should be brought
> to justice for their crimes.  They should be brutal, they learned from the
> best -- the CIA. et al., during the Reagan-Bush Administration.

Surely they didn't "learn" everything from the CIA!  Surely there were other
influences that contributed to their misogyny, religious intolerance, and
preoccupation with martyrdom.  Or are these people purely programmed by the
US to terrorize it and Jews, plus anyone else who happens to be in the
vicinity?

> Hold al Qaida responsible for their crimes -- a position I've held since
> September 11 -- but let's do the same for the Bush Administration and
other
> governments responsible for terrorism,  war crimes, and other crimes
> against humanity.

No argument there.  Of course, one thing that makes this difficult is that
world is not a state with a unified set of standards, law enforcment
officials, etc.  I'm pointing this out just to underscore how complex these
issues are.  I suspect that one reason Pynchon is relatively quiet publicly
on these issues in a non-fiction context is that he finds them utterly
exasperating.  Yes, he addresses such issues in his work, but he doesn't
make a habit of writing editorials, signing petitions, appearing at
demonstrations, etc.  Mhat many US authors did just that during Pynchon's
formative years, so he had examples he could emulate.  But instead he seems
to have diverged from those examples.  I'm not criticizing him for that; I'm
just taking note of it.
>
> Most observers agree that the results of the  "war on terrorism"  have
been
> primarily to scatter al Qaida across the globe, erode civil liberties here
> in the US, kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan (and elsewhere),  and
> cause untold suffering in Afghanistan, as it transfers billions and
> billions of dollars from the US government (taxpayers) to suppliers of
> weapon systems and other defense-related products and services. Far from
> eliminating evil, this war increases evil, violence leads to more violence
> and suffering that will continue, I expect, down through the generations,
> as in the  story of the Lambton Worm that Pynchon includes in M&D.
>
I agree that many US tactics run from regrettable to abhorrent.
Domestically, I'm as disturbed by the "detention" of thousands and its
implications as I was about the fiasco that put Bush in office in the first
place.  But what about this "untold suffering" in Afghanistan?  The repeated
failure to also acknowledge how horrible Afghanistan was prior to October
2001 can give the impression that the person who does that is engaging in
pure polemics instead of engaging in a reasonable discussion--even if that
person had previously posted articles that might be interpreted as showing
the Taliban in a negative light (as Doug did).  It seems to me that there's
more hope there now than there had been under the Taliban-al Qaida
stranglehold.  I wish there had been other, better ways to change things
there, but an unremitting focus on the misdeeds of the US as if it were
solely responsible for all the misery in Afghanistan does not do justice to
the complexity of the situation.  I also think that such polemics polarize
and provoke people who might otherwise be persuaded of some valid points.
This not only happens on our Lilliput list (where it really doesn't matter
much), but also in the public sphere, where the polemics fail to forge
understandings that could have a beneficial influence.  Looking at the
Guardian article that Doug just "shared" with the list, I continue to wish
there were more fruitful appeals from the countermovement than I've been
seeing and hearing.  First there's a weak anti-war message--the US shouldn't
become involved, the US is sending kids over there to be killed, millions
upon millions will die this winter of starvation--and now there seems to be
the expression from similar sources that the US didn't do enough and that
it's leaving prematurely.  The US population could use less sniping and more
of a vision to counter the momentum that the Bush government has.

As for the remarks about violence leading to more violence, I fear that
they're also too simplistic to bear scrutiny.  The idea that al Qaida or any
other violent group can be disarmed without violence is a concept that I
deeply wish were realizable, but there's little or no evidence that it's
workable.  I say that as a pacifist.  Humanity seems to be cursed with
violent tendencies that I wish could be replaced by peacefulness
immediately, but there's no basis to think that that will happen.  One
unfortunate reason is that violence, which is rampant worldwide, often does
work in its crude, sickening way.  The fact that thoughtful pacifists on
this list haven't come up with a realistic alternative to violence in this
case isn't anything for them to be ashamed of--it's just evidence of how far
everyone still has to go.

d.