Gautam Mukunda wrote:
--- Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The enemy of my enemy surely is my friend?
Nick
No. That seems to me the belief of some of the
European left which - asked to choose between Islamic
terroism and the US - seems to kind of prefer the
terrorists.
"Seems to kind of?" Weasel word alert! ;-)
How you got that from my statement I have
no idea. But, to pick an obvious example, the enemy
of my current enemy may not be my friend, but he might
well be my ally, a very different thing. Stalin was
not the United States's friend during the Second World
War, but he was most definitely its ally.
Thanks -- now I get it. I really was asking for clarification. There most certainly is a difference.
If I
understand your discussions with Dan correctly, you
seem to be advocating that the US deal with reality. I find this...amusing. Reality in the world today is
that there are lots of bad people in it. Some of them
want to harm the US. Some of them don't. Some of the
ones who don't are also enemies of those who do. This
may make them my tactical allies, even if they
nonetheless remain bad people who are not my friends.
Perhaps where we most differ is that I'm increasingly unwilling to use language that divides humanity into good and bad people. Nonetheless, when one is a cop, that shorthand is immensely pragmatic, and we are being the world's police, for better or worse. And it is difficult for me to believe that OSB and other terrorists are redeemable, yet do so I must. Believe me, that's purely on faith, as I see no *logical* reason to regard them as anything other as evil incarnate. Nor am I the sort of person who imagines that if we just treat such people better, they'll turn their lives around. I know myself well enough to know that change is unlikely and slow at best... and believe there are people who must not be permitted to roam the world freely. And as much as I would like to play God and say that it shouldn't be so, I do think there is an decent argument that sometimes the best way we can love our neighbor is to kill him. Such is life in a fallen world, in words about my faith.
If "bad people" is shorthand for people who are dangerous and must be contained, I'm comfortable with it. If it is shorthand for people who aren't offered God's grace of forgiveness and redemption, I can't accept that.
Nick
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