December 07, 2008
The Real Bill Ayers
William Ayers in the New York Times:
In the recently concluded presidential race, I was unwillingly thrust upon the stage and asked to play a role in a profoundly dishonest drama. I refused, and here’s why.
Unable to challenge the content of Barack Obama’s campaign, his opponents invented a narrative about a young politician who emerged from nowhere, a man of charm, intelligence and skill, but with an exotic background and a strange name. The refrain was a question: “What do we really know about this man?”
Secondary characters in the narrative included an African-American preacher with a fiery style, a Palestinian scholar and an “unrepentant domestic terrorist.” Linking the candidate with these supposedly shadowy characters, and ferreting out every imagined secret tie and dark affiliation, became big news.
I was cast in the “unrepentant terrorist” role; I felt at times like the enemy projected onto a large screen in the “Two Minutes Hate” scene from George Orwell’s “1984,” when the faithful gathered in a frenzy of fear and loathing.
More here.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 06:28 AM | Permalink
Comments
"Peaceful protests had failed to stop the war. So we issued a screaming response. But it was not terrorism; we were not engaged in a campaign to kill and injure people indiscriminately, spreading fear and suffering for political ends."
I think he's playing tricks with words. If the idea is that people can't be terrorized and bullied into carrying out your demands unless you kill some of them, that's flat out false. No-one who reads say the wikipedia article about these people would call them anything but terrorists. Besides, weren't we supposed to be fighting the idea that terrorists all look, talk and dress in a particular way and have the same objectives?
Posted by: D | Dec 7, 2008 10:35:11 AM
No, one doesn't have to kill to terrorize, but damned if we didn't try in Vietnam.
Posted by: Nathaniel Frentz | Dec 7, 2008 11:07:15 AM
Ayers has cast himself as the angry, impassioned young man of the 60's who merely acted out the fantasies of many enraged progressives of the era. He's not wrong. There are lots of elderly New Left types who wouldn't dream of disowning him, some of whom gave him a job. It is very hard for young progressives now to regard their counterparts of 40 years ago as considering that strategic murder was an option on the table. But then, it's not young progressives who are being sent to fight our present war. It is, largely, boys and girls in their late teens and very early 20's who did not leave off graduate study to sign up. Bill Ayers and the countless others who were so close to being just like him were operating under a very grave threat to themselves and everyone they knew. This excuses nothing, but explains a lot. One might well ask, how bad do things have to get for us before the young Bill Ayers -- not the arrogant and unapologetic senior citizen and community activist -- becomes an understandable figure?
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 7, 2008 11:11:17 AM
Elatia Harris,
Terrorists aren't that difficult to understand, except when we put on our politician hats. I can understand the Mumbai terrorists and their legitimate and illegitimate grievances. Terrorists, whether of the LTTE or of the al Qaeda, frequently have heartbreaking personal and cultural narratives. In comparative terms neither the sufferings nor the histories of the Ayers bunch are noteworthy. (Indeed, my sympathy is muted by thoughts like 'bratty, self-absorbed rich kids on a quest to destroy what sustained them', which spring only too easily to mind) Then again, neither were their actions.
But yes, if I can sort-of sympathize with the young Ayers (I wouldn't want to be drafted into an immoral war either), I cannot with the old, who's been treated remarkably well by this world considering, and yet manages to utterly avoid honest self-reflection and criticism. And I really don't approve of the New York Times giving this man space to write such a self-serving, self-indulgent article that glosses over his deeds. Domestic terrorist he was, and looking at this article, I don't see how unrepentant is an inaccurate characterization.
Posted by: D | Dec 7, 2008 11:53:14 AM
I'm with D on this. To understand is not to exculpate. There are a lot of thoughtful aging progressives and radicals who do denounce violence as a tactic, whether for ethical or pragmatic reasons, and who get few if any column inches in the Grey Lady. Ayers is, ultimately, just not that relevant. Though it was decent of him not to accede to the hate-baiting of the McCain campaign.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Dec 7, 2008 12:46:53 PM
D, I don't disagree with you here. I myself was way 2young2B wild when Bill Ayers was a boy-king of the left. Now that he's an establishment leftie, I can't see the amount of good he does via legal channels makes anything he did four decades ago all right -- it kind of doesn't work like that unless a person's going after redemption, which he clearly isn't. He's old, and romanticizing his youth if in a flinty idiom. Many young people of that era felt brave and free, subsequently finding the psychic cost of whatever they did to be negligible -- or, so great it needn't be borne at all.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 7, 2008 12:53:36 PM
Chris, I don't disagree with you either. That Ayers is not a marginal figure now, far from the purview of the NYT, is only partly because he has recently been very much in the news, a cannonball chained around Obama's legs in the neocon attempt to drown him. He is still out and about in a newsworthy way because there are enough of his peers in age and political thought (though not action) who don't -- really, really -- repudiate him. Sometimes, you meet people in their 60's and up who have to hand it to Janis Joplin for going the distance with drugs when many people only forfeited their 20's to same. Maybe there's an analogy here.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 7, 2008 1:07:26 PM
I find these comments humorous, and amusingly ignorant of the times and culture.
The speculation on the intent and pseudo psychology from someone not present is nothing more that mental masturbation.
From a pure existential truth, Ayers commented violent acts. If one puts the conditions of the time into the feedback, things get messy quickly (just like life).
Disclaimer: I am a past member of SDS, and did (and still do) actively participate in civil disobedience,
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Dec 7, 2008 1:16:06 PM
Dave, you found me out! MM being what it is, I need to get right back to it...I'm sure you understand.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 7, 2008 1:33:12 PM
Yeah, Dave. Way to harsh on my Happy Ending!
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Dec 7, 2008 1:44:49 PM
See also: Hilzoy
Posted by: elbrucce | Dec 7, 2008 2:00:15 PM
Oh jeez. If Obama had coffee with Henry Kissinger or Richard McNamara, who would have said boo? Why does Ayers have a special need to ask forgiveness?
Oh, my beloved revolutionary sweetheart
I can see your newsprint face turn yellow in the gutter
It makes me sad
How I long for the days when you came to liberate us from boredom
From driving around from five to seven in the evening
My beloved Tania,
We carry your gun deep within our hearts
For no better reason than our lives have no meaning
And we want to be on television
-Camper Van Beethoven, "Tania"
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Dec 7, 2008 2:31:40 PM
elb--
Ah yes, The Washington Monthly--
---"A must read" Time
I had no idea that Ayers would make this many people this uncomfortable.
Is it penis envy, or have the social paradigm of the faux left been unable to cross that line in the sand?
I think if they went there, they would be screaming in a fetal position, as the sensual world of the dialectic exposed them to the material truth.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Dec 7, 2008 2:49:41 PM
Dave,
You are so full of it. I thought Arlo Guthrie was far more effective than SDS. I was in Manhattan when that building blew up in the Village. All it did was scare everyone. Would they have been more effective in ending the war if they'd napalmed the Pentagon?
Doesn't the Forest Tradition teach nonviolence? First you claim (for the second time) that people are indulging in MM. I think you may engage in secret MMM, MM Meditation, if you think use of violence will end violence. Probably the most it can do is put a lid on it for a while until the slow simmer bursts forth into greater slaughter.
And now you've brought penis envy and the dialectic into the discussion, in good old Hegelian-Marxist-Freudian fashion. Where is your Buddhism? What would have happened if Gandhi had responded with violence after Amritsar? On what do you base your view that Ayers committed violent acts from "a pure existential truth"? How do you know he wasn't acting from sheer delusion?
I don't give a hoot about Ayers. He doesn't seem interested nowadays in blowing up Columbia Teachers College. He and Nicholas Miraculous, if not Dwight D. Eisenhower, would have probably gotten along splendidly.
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Dec 7, 2008 3:27:23 PM
CR-
Calm down! The Weather Underground was different from SDS, and, if you know your political history, split from SDS over this very issue.
Ayers is not a issue in my life now also, other than to discuss ideas based on pure speculation and myth with people not present at the time.
I'm quite a peaceful being, and much to old to cause any major chaos on this plundered planet.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Dec 7, 2008 3:38:11 PM
Well, OK. At least you're still young enough to stir up the blogosphere. ;-)
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Dec 7, 2008 3:59:37 PM
I'd have lots more respect for the SDS if they'd been carefully plotting to put LSD in thousands of field-rations, or sabotage F-4s, or replace all the gunpowder at Fort Bragg with incense; as it is, I have the same reaction to the SDS that I had to the L.A. rioters who burned down their own neighborhoods in the wake of the R. King verdict, because *convenience* is such an eminently American consideration in "revolutionary" matters, no? It's all been downhill since Valley Forge...
And then there's the other observation about narcissistic white boys with chemistry-class bombs, an upper-middleclass sense of Oedipal grievance, and wide-eyed groupies to egg them on...
Note, however: While I have a problem with Bill Ayers, it's a lot smaller than the one I have with professional mass murderers who get their *own libraries,* at the end of their glorious terms, instead of lengthy prison sentences and a taste of the lash.
Or, no, let's compare analogous smallfry, and contextualize the conversation; remember Lt. William Calley? Of My Lai massacre fame?
"Calley was charged on September 5, 1969 [Ayers was charged in June of that year], with six specifications of premeditated murder for the deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians near the village of My Lai, at a hamlet called Son My, more commonly called My Lai in the U.S. press. As many as 500 villagers, mostly women, children, infants and the elderly, had been systematically killed by American soldiers during a bloody rampage in 1968."
Calley served *three and a half years of house arrest* in his quarters at Fort Benning.
How many college students today consider Bill Ayers a terrorist, yet haven't a clue (and wouldn't give a damn) who William Calley is?
That, my friends, is called Controlling the Conversation.
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Dec 7, 2008 6:34:56 PM
Ooops, sorry, Dave: I meant to be scathing about the "Weathermen", not the SDS...
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Dec 7, 2008 6:37:58 PM
What's long bothered me about Ayers and Dohrn is the likely extent to which their violent infamy advanced their present careers. You just know that there were doors opened by folks who gloried in their connection to Those Times, ignoring, among others, qualified activists who made the unfortunate choice to remain committed to nonviolence.
Phil Nugent in October: "Now that it looks as if the McCain campaign's "palling around with terrorists" line of codswallop isn't going to cost Obama the votes of anyone who was ever likely to vote for him in this lifetime, can we all exhale and, as we do, agree with a chuckle that if anyone had to have his "radical" "domestic terrorist" past dug up and smeared all over his cozy upper-middle-class life, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving candidate than Bill Ayers?"
Posted by: kynefski | Dec 7, 2008 6:43:54 PM
Steven,
"Note, however: While I have a problem with Bill Ayers, it's a lot smaller than the one I have with professional mass murderers who get their *own libraries,* at the end of their glorious terms, instead of lengthy prison sentences and a taste of the lash."
I would agree with you that mass murderers should not be glorified with glorious libraries, but what purpose do you think "lengthy prison sentences and a taste of the lash" would serve?
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Dec 7, 2008 7:28:36 PM
So, help me understand this, o wise 3qd readers: the new American establishment lefties (which all happen to be as far-left as somebody in a 'liberal democracy' can be- in other words, not much), are taking this Ayers guy to task because he engaged in 'terrorism', which, by his own account, was mainly symbolic and never killed anybody, while mostly going easy on the U.S. military that managed to murder around 3 million Vietnamese. Am I getting the right picture here, or am I, as an 'Anti-American' third-worlder missing something that would explain why Bill Ayers is actually way worse than, say, the guys behind My Lai or Henry effing Kissinger.
Posted by: Pepito | Dec 7, 2008 7:39:36 PM
Pepito, Who said that? That Ayers is worse than My Lai berserkers or Kissinger? I don't think anyone here implied that.
Steven, I was trying to find an article about the military initiating special training post-WWII and Korean War because so many soldiers were reluctant to fire their weapons, so strong was their revulsion to killing. I couldn't find that article but found this on instructor David Grossman:
pbs
Grossman is also featured on a site called killology.com. Brings Gibbon quote to mind: "History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Dec 7, 2008 7:57:55 PM
CM:
"I would agree with you that mass murderers should not be glorified with glorious libraries, but what purpose do you think "lengthy prison sentences and a taste of the lash" would serve?"
Well, if I'd mentioned a firing squad you can bet this comment would have ended up in a file somewhere. Ooops.
Pepito:
Don't you at least read the half dozen or so most recent comments in the thread...?
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Dec 7, 2008 8:00:41 PM
"Don't you at least read the half dozen or so most recent comments in the thread...? "
Apparently not, Steven. I had just read the first 10 or so. But the comment stands, because I am not referring only to 3qd posters (this goes for Critical Mass' comments) but to what is known as the American Mainstream left, which usually mumble something about patriotism while condemning Ayers. Pass the ciabatta, please...
Posted by: Pepito | Dec 7, 2008 8:07:35 PM
Not disagreeing with you in spirit, Pepito; I only mention checking the thread in the interest of gadfly efficiency; one of us could've mentioned Lt. Calley and the other could've mentioned *Steven D. Green*, for example. Not, of course, in the interest of moral equivalence, but to contrast what "we" choose to remember with what "we" habitually forget.
In any case, the furore over Ayers was/is laughable.
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Dec 7, 2008 8:24:07 PM
Pepito, Are you saying that I wrote something that led you to believe that I thought Ayers' offenses were worse than the My Lai war crimes or those of Henry Kissinger?
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Dec 7, 2008 8:41:38 PM
Pepito--
You had better stop, this is way to much reality for this faux "liberal" crowd. They have never hid under a truck during a fire fight in Leon, or had roommates shot in the back by the "swat team", nor were they the most drafted class of the Vietnam War, and saw friends die on a regular basis.
Faced with the material reality of their lives, it is all about sound bites and pseudo morality.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Dec 7, 2008 9:09:57 PM
kynefsk---
Do you have the balls (or ovaries) to put your self on the line like Ayers or Dohrn?
Your criticism is laughable, and your media centric view a sign of the shallow time we currently live in.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Dec 7, 2008 9:17:38 PM
So, to recap:
Drop more bombs on Laos than were dropped in all of WWII = Nobel Peace Prize.
Blow up an apartment in Greenwich Village and a toilet stall in the Pentagon = terrorist, or putz, depending.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Dec 7, 2008 9:22:54 PM
"From a pure existential truth"
What does that phrase mean here, exactly? Anything?
Just curious.
Posted by: Anderson | Dec 7, 2008 9:29:18 PM
Dave writes: "You had better stop, this is way to much reality for this faux "liberal" crowd. They have never hid under a truck during a fire fight in Leon, or had roommates shot in the back by the "swat team", nor were they the most drafted class of the Vietnam War, and saw friends die on a regular basis.
Faced with the material reality of their lives, it is all about sound bites and pseudo morality."
How the hell do you know what people here have been through? You're not making much sense, Dave. Shooting wars aren't the only kind that cut through the "pseudo morality" you apparently congratulate yourself on having risen above. Your self-congratulatory bloviation is growing tiresome.
Posted by: CriticalMassI | Dec 7, 2008 9:34:36 PM
CriticalMassl: my bad, that was a typo (should read 'comment' instead of 'comments'). My point is that the mainstream left in the US is exercised by Ayers in a way that it has never been when it comes to Kissinger or any other U.S. war criminal. I think the other commenters got it.
Posted by: Pepito | Dec 7, 2008 9:44:32 PM
"hid under a truck during a fire fight in Leon"
As in Nicaragua?
Ben Linder is more my idea of "putting it on the line".
And the endless back and forth of whether he was or was not carrying a gun is another good example of "controlling the conversation."
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Dec 7, 2008 9:47:09 PM
Vicky:
Exactly. It all depends on who's backing you. If you are on the side of evil(TM), then you're indeed a 'terrorist'. If you're on the side of good(TM), then you did the right thing, like in Hiroshima, or Wounded Knee.
Posted by: Pepito | Dec 7, 2008 9:59:57 PM
Vick, that's perfect.
Dave, though my testicles had not yet descended when Diana Oughton bought the farm, I may have some idea of history from reading it, enough at least to differentiate between people who were Communists in the 30's and people who were (still) Communists in the 50's -- a distinction I'll bet you make on some basis other than personal memory and personal politics.
Pepito, you're not wrong! But where is it written that cogency is served by comparing anyone but a very, very few on the left, anywhere, to Henry Kissinger? That's matching up cormorants and kiwis for size. Lt. "Call me Rusty" Calley himself would come off a minor offender on that scale.
I think it's more useful to compare Bill Ayers to others of that era who worked to end the Vietnam War, with varying degrees of effectiveness, at considerable risk to themselves, with striking disregard for certain others like John Fassnacht. Can anyone make the case that Bill Ayers hastened the end of the war by any violent and/or potentially violent actions he took? Norman Morrison accomplished more and put more on the line.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 7, 2008 10:06:41 PM
I've often been infuriated at the mere mention of Kissinger, and usually go off on a rant about how they gave him a peace prize for his troubles...still, I am not liking comparisons to people like him. (Steven Augustine's My Lai example is a far better one.) Two reasons:
- We've been deploying powerful social and psychological technologies for thousands of years now that allow non-monstrous people in power to do horrifying things without feeling like monsters.
- Large systems diffuse blame and guilt, so the guy who gives the advice isn't the guy who formulates plans isn't the guy who makes the decisions isn't the guy who implements a specific strategy isn't the guy on the ground who leads the guys who do the killing. And everyone turns a blind eye.
A Cheney, who's led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, simply doesn't have to be as twisted even as someone who merely set dogs on naked prisoners even though he does far more harm. It's just one of those times when one needs to separate two concepts and put them in quite different mental boxes - how awful a person is doesn't equate to how damaging his conduct was. We all intuitively get this for people who never intended harm to begin with. Somehow the two seem harder to distinguish mentally intention itself wasn't pure, but they remain conceptually distinct.
In any case, the rulers of men haven't typically done much that would commend them as models of ethical excellence. Big people who're unaccountable have always gotten away with murder. Democracy helps some but not nearly enough (and there's always that quote from Goering...). It's bad enough without our standardizing the expectation that little people will be just as awful. Sure, it's unfair, but until someone devises a better way , I'd much rather have have both big and little thugs held in scorn without drawing comparisons (even well intentioned ones) between them that ultimately end up serving to embolden and justify the latter (if only in their own eyes).
Posted by: D | Dec 7, 2008 10:07:40 PM
Viki--
As in Nicaragua----
I spent some time there during the revolution.
Leon was often a pretty hot place.
El Salvador was horrific.
But that is another story, in a land far far away from 3quarks---
We can always find someone who put more on the line, but few (at least from what I can gather here on the revolutionary front of the worldly comrades at 3quarks) put as much as that evil, career advancing terrorist Ayers.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Dec 7, 2008 10:25:22 PM
Elatia:
I'm not trying to equate Ayers and Kissinger. If anything my intention is to show that Ayers' misdemeanors are getting much more attention from the US left than EVEN Kissinger's crimes (of course, I'm merely stating the obvious- because Ayers' actions were directed against symbols of American power while Kissinger's...well, where do I start?). A joke stops being funny when you have to explain it, as you most likely know.
Posted by: Pepito | Dec 7, 2008 10:30:47 PM
D.:
It's not so much the ethical weighing of who's the bigger thug, because as Tolstoy quoted the Lord, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." It's more the abominable crimes down the memory hole.
Ayers and Kissinger both were caught up in the mythology of violence as proof of penis size.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Dec 7, 2008 10:54:14 PM
"Ayers and Kissinger both were caught up in the mythology of violence as proof of penis size."
Sadly, true. Young men like blowing stuff up and old men like exploiting that fact. And "objectives" are often only an excuse; innocent wrong-place-wrong-timers the victims.
Posted by: Steven Augustine | Dec 8, 2008 3:39:35 AM
Let me first admit that I was -10 years old when Ayers was finishing up his career as a domestic terrorist. Or at least, as near as I can tell, that's what the Weather Underground was up to. But I don't think we can confuse what Ayers and his buddies did with Islamic Jihadist terrorism. First, the Weather Underground was focused on fairly particular goals, and second, they made a conscious decision to not kill. The second of these can of course be argued, as the risk of causing death is no doubt higher when exploding a bomb compared to not exploding a bomb, but intent seems important anytime one is discussing terrorism.
I think the left in the U.S. has the bad habit of trying to completely segregate goals and means. While I am far from an anything goes kind of guy, and personally preach and practice non-violence, it is still a mistake to consider other's actions outside the scope of their goals. The U.S. was in the middle of trying kill a country into submission, and the Weather Underground's response was to "safely" blow up federal buildings. It's hard not to see that as at least a proportional response.
Which is different than saying it was good, moral, or effective. But I'm happy that Ayers is back in the news argueing his case. He's given some of the best interviews on main stream T.V. I've seen in years, bringing up the unpleasant memories of the real Vietnam that were seemingly forgotten by most post-9/11, and certainly not taught in public schools (or at least mine).
Anyway, what happened to the liberal value of forgiveness in the face of reform? Someone above said Ayers had not reformed, yet in every interview he has given after the election he has maintained that the only way to proceed against our current wars is non-violently. He clearly sees his past as in line with the times, but has rejected a return to such action. Indeed, it should be easy to forgive him his past transgressions: no one was killed (except co-conspirators), and he now speaks out against similar action.
To end, I want to reemphasize what Viki said above:
"Drop more bombs on Laos than were dropped in all of WWII = Nobel Peace Prize.
Blow up an apartment in Greenwich Village and a toilet stall in the Pentagon = terrorist, or putz, depending."
I don't think anyone here is making that mistake. Anyway, playing the "your guy is worse than our guy" line doesn't win arguments. But the point is very important. The deeds of these two men are not comparable in scope and destruction, death, and deceit. Yet one is still allowed to walk the halls of the UN, held in high regard, and serves as a cultural hero to many. That is the real sickness in American society: an inability to admit past atrocities and live with the guilt and shame of them. We don't need to become Germany and adopt a single-mindedness guilt complex, but it wouldn't be a horrible thing for the country to go through the truth and reconciliation process, something that never seems to have happened. In that light, Ayers is not the problem.
Cheers,
Cyrus
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Dec 8, 2008 5:00:22 AM
Cyrus Hall -
First, the Weather Underground was focused on fairly particular goals, and second, they made a conscious decision to not kill. The second of these can of course be argued, as the risk of causing death is no doubt higher when exploding a bomb compared to not exploding a bomb, but intent seems important anytime one is discussing terrorism. I think the left in the U.S. has the bad habit of trying to completely segregate goals and means.
- If you believe Robert Pape, terrorists quite generically have particular goals. What's not particular about the desire for a Palestinian or Tamil homeland, or wanting US troops out of Saudi Arabia?
- Wikipedia says they made a conscious decision not to kill after three of them accidentally blew themselves up with nail bombs intended for an officer's dance and the Columbia library.
- If we're going to exclude foreseeable deaths because they're not intended, and take the perpetrators' words that reasonable precautions have been taken, then you'll have to exclude the bulk of civilian casualties in war, and disown attendant criticisms of Kissinger. The doctrine of double effect has been around and controversial for a while now. You can't use it selectively just when it pleases you. At least Kissinger acted through a legitimate, democratically elected government.
- Yes, intent is important. Outside of comic strips though there aren't that many Evildoers whose stated intent is to destroy the planet. People who aren't sociopaths typically try very hard to convince themselves their goals are noble before doing icky things.
Posted by: D | Dec 8, 2008 6:41:19 AM
I'm just loving the Starbucks & Coke product placement - does anyone know if Spielberg shot the interview?
Posted by: Jesse | Dec 8, 2008 7:16:30 AM
D-
I'm not sure we really disagree much, except maybe on the goals of a part of the Jihadist movement. No doubt, the Palestinians and Tamil's have fairly immediate goals, but I don't think the same can be said for Al Qaeda, which has an all together more vacuous position. I typically refer to this second group as Islamic Jihadists, although I guess that's not a great labeling.
Yes, of course setting of a bomb is hardly a safe thing to do. I said is much in my post, and in no way do I excuse it. But compared to bombing from 25,000 feet, it is a very different act, and the risk of civilian casualties were very much reduced. (It is indeed telling that they made that decision after someone died, rather then the event hardening them in the opposite direction.) Within the context of Vietnam, such action can be viewed as "proportional" to the cause of stopping wholesale slaughter. That doesn't make it right or ethical, but it does seem proportional. I end up feeling both a desire to condemn and yet also a sense of understanding at the same time...what can I say?
Cheers,
Cyrus
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Dec 8, 2008 10:01:30 AM
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