New Clear Vision

Revenge Is Self-Defeating, and War Brings Terror

by Winslow Myers

Our euphoric national mood in the wake of the assassination of Osama bin Laden may make for a reluctance to look once again, or perhaps for the first time, at his demands. There has been almost nothing in the mainstream press that examines his motivations for terrorism.

We prefer a bogeyman of pure evil, because this does not require the kind of introspection suggested by the Society of Friends: what is it in my own inner condition, or that of my country, that might play a part in leading to a phenomenon like bin Laden?

In an extensive 2002 letter to the American people printed in the British publication the Observer, bin Laden laid out his specific justifications for horrific violence against innocents.

He began by citing passages from the Koran that give permission to Islamists to fight “disbelievers.” Immediately this sets up a pathological context, because it contains what philosophers call a performative contradiction: he proclaims Islam as a universal religion, but his vision is radically exclusivist. His illusion is that a universal God is on the side of pure Islam against impure or non-Islamists. (more…)

Restoring National Unity Through Collective Compassion

by Brian J. Trautman

My reaction to news of the targeted assassination of al-Qaeda founder and most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden was unlike many Americans’. Celebrating killing and death felt wrong, and to witness my fellow citizens cheering jubilantly and chanting nationalist slogans with joy and pride was disheartening. Instead of reveling in more militarism and murder, our energies should be devoted to bringing home the roughly 150,000 American soldiers still deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq and in harm’s way every minute of every day.

National unity shouldn’t be born of and driven by acts of aggression; it should be shaped and inspired by individual and collective compassion and an altruistic desire to advocate for and alleviate the suffering of the tens of millions of civilians around the world, especially the children, who live in conflict zones and engage in a daily struggle to avoid the inhumanity and indiscriminate brutality of oppression and war. (more…)

Human Rights and Moral Principles Reject Extra-Judicial Killings

by Jerry Elmer

In early 1998, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan), Mary Jo White, convened a grand jury; and, on June 10, 1998, the grand jury handed up a criminal indictment against a certain man who was, then, a fugitive from justice.  The eight-page indictment alleged several serious federal felonies.  Some years later a successor grand jury expanded the original indictment; it grew to 29 pages, and alleged many criminal violations, including capital crimes.  The alleged criminal remained a fugitive.

In August 2010, President Obama came to believe that he knew the whereabouts of the indicted, but untried, man.  The President did not have the fugitive arrested so that he could be tried on the criminal charges pending against him (as the law requires).  Instead, the President resorted to a hit squad — a group of heavily armed men that went after the indicted, but untried, individual. (more…)

Arizona’s Ethnic Studies Ban Ignites a Human Rights Movement

by Roberto Rodriguez

Reality Isn’t a Movie, and Killing Doesn’t Bring Peace

by David Swanson

I’m going to give this speech tonight to a crowd of drunk young people. If I’m not back by morning, ask around if there have been any “Islamic burials.”

About 10 years ago a bunch of psychotic killers crashed planes into buildings. A tall skinny guy who took credit said he was protesting the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia and US support for Israel’s war on Palestinians. That wasn’t exactly going to hold up in a court of law as a justification for mass-murder. But the U.S. government had already, before 9-11, turned down offers from the Taliban to put bin Laden on trial in a third country, and it turned those offers down again. (more…)

What Celebrating bin Laden’s Death Reveals About Ourselves

by Caty Gordon

In the wake of the announcement that Osama bin Laden has been killed by US forces, his life and death (both saturated in controversy) merit reflection.  He proudly laid claim to killing nearly 3000 people in a single day, and openly touted his financial and military support for numerous other attacks on humankind. The man lived with the intent to oust any person or regime that threatened his goals of a dogmatic Islamic government and a Middle East free of American-sponsored dictators and military occupations. He even penned a fatwa in which he prescribed the killing of Americans as a duty of all Muslims. Bin Laden has also come to exemplify all that is evil about Arabs and Muslims in the corporate American media.  So it is understandable that Americans would react strongly to the news of his death. (more…)

Dancing in the Streets for Death Only Promises More of It

by David Swanson

The plane I was on landed in Washington, DC, Sunday night, and the pilot came on the intercom to tell everyone to celebrate: our government had killed Osama bin Laden. This was better than winning the Super Bowl, he said.

Set aside for a moment the morality of cheering for the killing of a human being — which despite the pilot’s prompting nobody on the plane did. In purely Realpolitik terms, killing foreign leaders whom we’ve previously supported has been an ongoing disaster.

Our killing of Saddam Hussein has been followed by years of war and hundreds of thousands of pointless deaths. Our attempts to kill Muammar Gadaffi have killed his children and grandchildren and will end no war if they eventually succeed. Our attempts to kill Osama bin Laden, including wars justified by that mission, have involved nearly a decade of senseless slaughter in Afghanistan and the rest of the ongoing global “generational” war that is consuming our nation. (more…)