pühapäev, mai 16, 2004
Outrage and Condemnation
Setting aside the funny bit where Colin Powell's aide tried to cut his Meet the Press interview off, Powell's message today is that the Arab world isn't outraged enough by Nick Berg's beheading. As this storynotes:
The Islamic militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas issued strongly worded condemnations of the killing. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the first Arab governments to criticize the murder after an initial silence throughout the region about the videotape.
Even the other terrorists are strongly condemning it. What more is he looking for? Powell's again making the right wing mistake of pretending the beheading is the same as the prison abuse. It's not. As I've said many times here, what terrorists do on their own and what US soldiers do in the name of their country are two different things. Iran isn't responsible for Nick Berg's killing. Their own military didn't kill him. How outraged do they need to be? What is a sufficient level of outrage exactly? Does Powell need to condemn every violent murder of an innocent person that occurs in the western world? Terrorists are committing terrorist acts again. Why is this a surprise to anyone? It was a horrible thing, but on par with everything else they do. They're bad people. We know that. We've known that for a long time.
"Notwithstanding what people think about what we did at the prison, there can be no comparison to the actions of a few who are going to be punished and brought to justice as a result of what happened at Abu Ghraib," Powell told NBC's "Meet the Press."
"There is anger in the Arab world about some of our actions, but that is no excuse for any silence on the part of any Arab leader for this kind of murder," Powell said. "This kind of murder is unacceptable in anyone's religion, in anybody's political system that is a political system based on any kind of understanding and respect for human rights."
Well, the murder of Nick Berg was the action of a few, also. And that murder wasn't accepted by any Arab political system. Could Arab leaders have said more about it? Sure. But what the hell good would it really have done?
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Setting aside the funny bit where Colin Powell's aide tried to cut his Meet the Press interview off, Powell's message today is that the Arab world isn't outraged enough by Nick Berg's beheading. As this storynotes:
The Islamic militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas issued strongly worded condemnations of the killing. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the first Arab governments to criticize the murder after an initial silence throughout the region about the videotape.
Even the other terrorists are strongly condemning it. What more is he looking for? Powell's again making the right wing mistake of pretending the beheading is the same as the prison abuse. It's not. As I've said many times here, what terrorists do on their own and what US soldiers do in the name of their country are two different things. Iran isn't responsible for Nick Berg's killing. Their own military didn't kill him. How outraged do they need to be? What is a sufficient level of outrage exactly? Does Powell need to condemn every violent murder of an innocent person that occurs in the western world? Terrorists are committing terrorist acts again. Why is this a surprise to anyone? It was a horrible thing, but on par with everything else they do. They're bad people. We know that. We've known that for a long time.
"Notwithstanding what people think about what we did at the prison, there can be no comparison to the actions of a few who are going to be punished and brought to justice as a result of what happened at Abu Ghraib," Powell told NBC's "Meet the Press."
"There is anger in the Arab world about some of our actions, but that is no excuse for any silence on the part of any Arab leader for this kind of murder," Powell said. "This kind of murder is unacceptable in anyone's religion, in anybody's political system that is a political system based on any kind of understanding and respect for human rights."
Well, the murder of Nick Berg was the action of a few, also. And that murder wasn't accepted by any Arab political system. Could Arab leaders have said more about it? Sure. But what the hell good would it really have done?
