[lit-ideas] Re: Willie Pete's Role Reversal

  • From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 08:57:52 -0500

Phil: If we want to make moral judgments, then we have to make moral distinctions. As far as I can tell, M. Chase declines to make such distinctions so I don't see any grounds for moral judgments. I have difficulty imagining how the Bush administration could have done a worse job of fucking-up the situation in Iraq but the fact remains that the U.S. soldiers in Iraq are under orders to do all they can to avoid civilian casualties. This distinguishes them, morally, from al-Zarqawi and his ilk.

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That sums it up. As I wrote to Judy a couple days ago, the worst mistakes of the US troops resemble the day-to-day strategy of the insurgency.

Mike Chase says war crimes are war crimes, wrongful deaths are wrongful deaths. So he would make no distinction between an Allied soldier in World War 2 who accidentally shot a civilian in a firefight and a German soldier in Auschwitz who turned on the Xyclon-B gas in an extermination room.

That's convenient if your motive is to ignore the agency of individual soldiers and instead concentrate on hated icons like Bush & Co. Very convenient. You can say that Eisenhower accidentally shot the civilian and Adolf Hitler turned on the gas in that particular room. It wouldn't be true but you could say it. Then you could foam at the mouth and posture moral outrage. It's something to do I guess.

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