Testing 1, 2
Is this really what we have been reduced to? Moreover, what does this make Iraq in that case? As we all know, Al-Qaida and WMD's had nothing to do with it. And the Iranians were helping American soldiers who were operated in Afghanistan. However, that aside, this makes Olmert's weak overtures to the Palestinians even more disingenuous.I am equally disgusted with an article which appeared in Sign and Sight. It claims that the world cares not when Muslims kill Muslims, or for that matter when anyone other than Israelis kill Muslims. I beg to differ. This article specifically refers to Iraq, Dafur and Chechnya. Perhaps Monsieur Glucksmann failed to notice a few minor details.
I would compare Iraq with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for one fleeting moment. It is not that the world does not care that Muslims are being killed (although granted, America seems to be the mandatory exception to this rule). Rather, I believe it is that the world has become de-sensitised to these deaths. Each additional death does little to add to the horrors of the scores of deaths that preceded it. I would argue that it is clear that at least in theory, the world wants both of these conflicts resolved.
As for Chechnya, I remember sitting in high school, hearing and reading about the world's outcries. Unfortunately, Clinton was too busy bombing the Balkans to create any moral high ground from which to dictate anything to the Russians. (Don't get me wrong--I like Clinton. However, no matter how many times this strategy is tried, it never produces the results desired.)
Lastly, we have Dafur. I agree: what happened, what is still happening, in Sudan is horrific. I found bitter irony in the fact that in one breath the World's states said, "never again", and in the next, refused to aid those who needed it most. However, I would postulate that Europe and the US had less influence over the Sudanese government than America has over Israel. In other words, the current crisis in Lebanon is all the more deplorable because (a) the Israelis attacked a state which had not attacked it, (b) the US had the requisite influence over the Israelis to bring an earlier end to the hostilities and (c) for all its bragging about it capability to avoid civilian casualties, the vast majority of the dead on the Lebanese side were civilians. Israel attacked a country which was just rebuilding itself. So, perhaps it is not so that "some Muslim corpses are light as a feather, and others weigh tonnes", Monsieur Gluckmann.
posted by vesna @ 20:32
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