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

  • From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 09:14:59 -0500

Except that we're the Germans in this war.  The Americans started it for no
legitimate reason at all.  That means nothing to you.



> [Original Message]
> From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 11/11/2005 8:57:42 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Willie Pete's Role Reversal
>
> 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.
>
> _____
>
> 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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