terrorism

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Quiz: Georgetown’s Qatar Conference”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

American Antisemitism Sunday continues with one of Steve-O-in NJ’s trademark historical commentaries in response to today’s post, “Ethics Quiz: Georgetown’s Qatar Conference.”

And here it is!

[I also could have justifiably credited Steve with an Ethics Quote of the Week, which you will find below: “[E]thical leaders of any cause owe those they lead a duty to realize when the conflict has become unwinnable and then seek an end to the conflict.”]

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I don’t know about unethical, but it’s surely tone-deaf, in bad taste, and divisive in light of the current situation and in light of what this symposium seems to cover. A discussion about the now almost 80-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict is certainly possible, assuming it were a balanced one. A discussion of terrorism through the last two centuries which would include the difference between political (in support of a political goal) and millennial terrorism (where the violence is the goal), changes in viability with technology, counter-terror tactics and their evolution, and so on could be very interesting. However, this sounds like a pity party for Palestine and a hate-fest for Israel. It’s allowable, just barely, under free speech and academic freedom, as long as it sticks to discussion, although I think it’s going to generate a lot of heat and very little light. If it’s going to be a seeding place for violent demonstrations, forget it.

Truth be told, trying to nail down any kind of ethical framework around terrorism is like trying to staple water to a wall. Some deliberately try to separate the two by saying things like “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Frankly that’s the lazy way out, although it IS true that our biases are going to color how we view one cause vs. another cause and what kind of tactics we can justify. Rebellions of one kind or another have been around almost as long as mankind has organized itself into this group vs. that group, and certainly since the days when mankind had empires. The Romans were often able to stymie that by making the conquered peoples into junior partners, but some peoples, like the Jews, the Britons, and so on, wanted no part of that kind of arrangement, and had to be essentially destroyed to the point where organized resistance was no longer viable. In a time when both sides had essentially the same weapons, it was all about numbers. Certain tactics like ambushes and targeted eliminations, proto-terrorism if you will, worked to some degree, but usually couldn’t win. If the rebel side had insufficient numbers or was dispersed to the point where it couldn’t get sufficient numbers together, violent resistance wasn’t viable. Rebels or bandits could give the other side a very hard time (Hereward the Wake, the Knights of St. John at Rhodes), but in the end causes like that were usually either doomed, or only went anywhere when they COULD amass numbers enough to wage something like a real civil war.

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American Antisemitism Sunday on Ethics Alarms Kicks Off With This Ethics Quiz: Georgetown’s Qatar Conference

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The Jerusalem Post reports in part:

[Georgetown University] is hosting a Hamas-affiliated media personality as a keynote speaker at a conference, in addition to other officials from designated terror organizations…..titled “Reimagining Palestine,” [concluding today] in Qatar. One of the main speakers was Wadah Khanfar, a former official at Qatar’s mouthpiece Al Jazeera whose relationship with Hamas has been well-documented throughout the years. Khanfar was named as an early leader of Hamas’s office in Sudan by multiple Arabic-speaking outlets, including the Palestinian Raya Media Network, the Yemen-based Mareb Press, and the British Al-Arab website. Likewise, according to Mohamed Fahmy, a former Al Jazeera English Egypt bureau chief, the Muslim Brotherhood described Khanfar in 2007 as “one of the most prominent leaders in the Hamas office in Sudan.” Khanfar was also reportedly connected to the al-Aqsa Foundation in South Africa, which the US Treasury Department designated “a critical part of Hamas terrorist support infrastructure.” ….Other speakers at the conference included Shawan Jabarin, who is closely affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another designated terror organization, and Issam Younis, who in the past supported Hamas’s oppressive rule in Gaza…

The Washington Free Beacon, the conservative publication, adds (because the mainstream news media doesn’t think this is newsworthy]:

The speakers at the “Reimagining Palestine” event will discuss the “ideological shifts” of Zionism, “art as resistance,” and “anti-colonial struggles,” and will engage in “dialogue that challenges the status quo,” according to the Doha event’s website.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is….

Is it ethical for an American institution of higher learning to do this in the midst of the Israel-Hamas War?

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The Self-Terrorism of the Late Aaron Bushnell

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

I decided that we don’t need to see Bushnell’s last act, setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in D.C. You can find the video if you look. Publicizing that pointless suicide only gives some small purpose to a deranged stunt that doesn’t deserve the attention.

The 25-year-old a cyberdefense operations specialist with the 531st Intelligence Support Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas self-immolated Buddhist-style two days ago, dousing himself with gasoline and saying on the scene, “I am an active duty member of the US Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide.”

” I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest,” he continued, “but compared to what people in Palestine have been experiencing at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all.”

“This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal,” he added, and shouted “Free Palestine!” in flames as his last words.

Whatever. Ram-a-lam-a-ding dong.

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Unethical Quotes of the Month: The University of North Carolina’s Faculty Council

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This is not an encouraging situation.

Last week, the University of North Carolina’s Faculty Council met to consider, among other matters, a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on school’s campus. An on-campus event in November included a speaker who said, referring to the barbaric terrorist attack on Israeli civilians, that “October 7 was for many of us from the region a beautiful day.” No one at the event did or said anything to reject that sentiment. The proposed resolution stated, “We strongly condemn the antisemitic statements made during a Unity roundtable event No Peace Without Justice held on November 28, 2023.”

That wouldn’t seem too difficult to agree with or too controversial, would it? Yet the resolution failed to pass. The Faculty Council voted 32-29, with six abstentions, to table the resolution for the foreseeable future. Here are some of the most striking comments made by those who objected to the resolution:

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2022 Mid-Term Elections Panic Report: The New York Times Editors Endorse Terrorism

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

There are a lot of signs that the Woke, the Left, the Resistance, Democrats and the news media that filters reality for their objectives are collectively losing their grip in theincreasingly unavoidable realization that their dreams of societal transformation in America are going to be significantly hobbled by the upcoming vote-fest. We saw this stage coming (or should have) some time ago, with perhaps the most striking confirmation arriving when Joe Biden decided to channel Der Fuhrer while calling half the population fascists. Yet I didn’t see this coming, because I am a sap, and persist in my childish idealism telling me that as wacko as they seem right now, these are all traditional, ethical Americans at heart who are just having a bad six or seven years.

In the span of less than a week, the New York Times editors thought it responsible to publish two op-ed columns extolling the virtues of terrorism when not enough people want to do what the Good, Wise, Smart People—you know, like them—have decided is best. Jamelle Boiue, whose usual specialty in Times punditry is anti-white racism, actually lionized John Brown, whose body not only lies a-moldering in the grave but was an engine of random murder and terrorism.

Channeling W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1909 ode to Brown (the populists of that era often admired the lunatic: Clarence Darrow was also an admirer), Bouie agrees that Brown was motivated by “social doctrines of the French Revolution with its emphasis on freedom and power in political life” (Speaking of terror!), and his “inchoate but growing belief in a more just and a more equal distribution of property.” He continues in part,

“Has John Brown no message — no legacy, then, to the twentieth century?” asks Du Bois. “He has and it is this great word: the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression….Viewed in this light, Du Bois says, the memory of John Brown stands as a “mighty warning” to the United States and its peers. To wait to rectify the sins of the present — to sidestep justice in favor of comfort — is to make the final price of liberty all the more expensive…

“What Brown decided, Du Bois continues, was that he had to strike a blow for justice in his time. “It will cost something — even blood and suffering — but it will not cost as much as waiting…Du Bois’s broadside against hierarchy and exclusion still lands with as much force in 2022 as I’m sure it did in 1909. His warning that the tolerance of injustice will only lead to darker places and “darker deeds” is still relevant. And his closing reminder that without real “equality of opportunity” the best in humanity cannot be “discovered and conserved” remains as true now as it was then.”

Who’s advocating civil war now?

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In Defense Of The Terrorist: Clarence Darrow Eulogy For John Brown

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

In the ongoing debate here regarding what constitutes a great American—sparked by reader valkygrrl’s guest post on the topic as well as the President’s recent remarks at Mount Rushmore, the question of whether abolitionist John Brown belongs has been the most contentious. I don’t believe that one can ethically assign a murderer and law-breaker (and unraveling fanatic) like Brown to the “great American” category,  but a figure unquestionably smarter than I whom I believe unquestionably was  one of the greatest Americans did, and his argument deserves attention and thought. That figure is Clarence Darrow.

Brown was much admired by Darrow’s iconoclast father, Amirus Darrow, and his mother was an anti-slavery activist, turning the Darrow home into a stop on the Underground Railroad.  Born in 1857, Darrow was too young to remember the pre-Civil War period, and Brown was hanged in 1859. Nonetheless, the admiration for Brown was passed on from father to son, and there are moments in Darrow’s career where his actions seemed consistent with Brown’s philosophy of the ends justifying the means when the stakes were important enough, notably the conduct that almost got him disbarred and imprisoned for jury tampering. (Darrow was guilty, but was acquitted because he had a great defense attorney—Clarence Darrow.)

John Brown was a hero of Darrow’s , who didn’t have many: the abolitionist, Voltaire, and his friend and mentor John Peter Altgeld were about it, as far as I can tell. Periodically, on the anniversary of Brown’s birthday (May 8), Darrow would give a speech eulogizing Brown to a progressive group. Its final sentence is the most quoted:

The radical of today is the conservative of tomorrow, and other martyrs take up the work through other nights, and the dumb and stupid world plants its weary feet upon the slippery sand, soaked by their blood, and the world moves on.

Incredibly, Darrow’s John Brown Eulogy is impossible to find on the web now; I have no idea why. (Enter that sentence in Google, and what pops up is…me!) Thus I am  reproducing Darrow’s speech here, for two purposes: first, to let you consider Clarence Darrow ‘s argument for why we should honor John Brown, and second, to have an online home for it.

It is not the whole speech, but my own shortened and edited version. I am still hunting for the whole document in a form I can post (I have it in several books), and when I find it, I’ll substitute the complete version for this: Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 6/3/2020: Rationalizations #1 And #64

/ Jack Marshall / 75 Comments

Well, maybe the Nicholas Brothers will cheer me up….

I wrote about Fayard and Harold here. Talk about victims of systemic racism: the only reason these guys aren’t as famous as Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly is that Hollywood wouldn’t let them be. Justice would be making sure every single American kid sees this routine before they are 18.

1. Of course rioting is domestic terrorism. What else would you call it? It’s calculated violence against innocent citizens to promote fear and to advance a political objective. That’s terrorism.

If the truth hurts, tough. Boy, Rationalization #64. Yoo’s Rationalization or “It isn’t what it is” has had a work-out this year!

2. New York Times priorities: Here’s the top front page headline in the Times today: “How Trump’s Idea For Photo Op led To Havoc in the Park.”  Riots, looting, attacks on police and deaths from the George Floyd riots, and that’s the story the Times believes should be first today. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias. Continue reading →

Poll: The Worst Responses To The Killing Of Suleimani

/ Jack Marshall / 56 Comments

 

Nobody seriously disputes the fact that Iran has been waging an undeclared war against the U.S. for many years, depending on American aversion to the short and long term results of a military response, particularly among the Left’s permanent anti-military lobby in the U.S. The apotheosis of this strategy was Obama’s virtual capitulation in 2015, in which Iran received seized assets  and secret “pallets full of cash,” while the U.S. received hostages illegally held by Iran and a dubious promise not to prepare to nuke Israel for a while.  Iran has been playing the role of a small child abusing a larger, stronger rival, confident that any retaliation would be seen as bullying.

The United States and the world is always safest when the man in the White House is deemed capable of using the arsenal within his command as the deterrent it was built to be. This is one reason why Ronald Reagan was able to win the Cold War. For all the Left’s criticism of the war in Afghanistan, the alternative to forcefully retaliating for the attacks of 2001 would have been confirmation that the United States was a “toothless tiger,” weak, and cowardly, unwilling to defend itself and its citizens. Such a perception would have been dangerous, encouraging more terrorism, and more attacks.

As General Petraeus explained,

“Suleimani was …responsible for providing explosives, projectiles, and arms and other munitions that killed well over 600 American soldiers and many more of our coalition and Iraqi partners just in Iraq, as well as in many other countries such as Syria…. [Trump’s] reasoning seems to be to show in the most significant way possible that the U.S. is just not going to allow the continued violence—the rocketing of our bases, the killing of an American contractor, the attacks on shipping, on unarmed drones—without a very significant response.”

Why yes, I’d say that’s a reasonable interpretation of what happened, and hallelulia for that! Iran has responded in a manner that reveals its essential madness and barbarism, putting a bounty on President Trump’s head, and doing its familiar “American Satan” routine that we have been treated to since President Jimmy Carter cowered inertly in the White House after Iran kidnapped 52 of our diplomats and embassy personnel more than 40 years ago. Continue reading →

Proposition: Nike Should Fire Colin Kaepernick And Be Severely Punished by Consumers For Promoting This Hateful Idiot As A Hero And Role Model

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Colin Kaepernick was metaphorically taking a knee on Twitter yesterday. He wrote, referring to the killing of Qassem Soleimani,

…and later…

Kaepernick’s words and conduct mark him as a narcissistic, ignorant, America-hating, race-baiting idiot. That’s what he is, other than a washed-up pro athlete whose erudition began and ended with a fake college degree (his major, amusingly, was business management) while he prepared to play pro football. His irresponsible kneeling stunt cost the NFL millions, launched multiple divisive offspring, denigrated the nation and its police, and accomplished nothing positive, in large part because it was incoherent.

Never mind: Nike, exhibiting the amoral and ethics-free motivations that have long characterized most corporations, pandered to the woke, hateful and dumb by making Kaepenick the face of its latest “Just do it!” campaign, a 30 year old slogan that was always stupid, even by corporate slogan standards. Admittedly, a stupid slogan is a good bet to appeal to the people who will pay ridiculous amounts of money for sneakers, but even so: Just do what? Just jump out a window? Just set your face on fire? Just sexually assault that attractive woman at work? Just shoot off your mouth about matters you are painfully ill-informed about? Continue reading →

Seeking An Ethics Verdict On Rafi Eitan [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

“In principle, when there is a war on terror you conduct it without principles. You simply fight it.”

So said Rafi Eitan, the legendary Israeli spymaster and Mossad operative in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz in 2010. Is that the credo of a hero or a villain?  When he died last week at the age of 92, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Mr. Eitan “among the heroes of the intelligence services of the State of Israel.” Is “hero of intelligence services” an oxymoron? Eitan’s credo certainly justifies murder, torture and extra-legal activities; indeed, it justifies almost anything. That’s not ethics, it’s the opposite: the ends justify the means, tit for tat, vengeance, and  scorched earth warfare without the inconvenience of a formal declaration of war. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert eulogized Eitan as “a smart, cunning and sharp person, who remained capable until his last day”, and praised him as one of “the most intelligent, competent, responsible and creative ministers in the government.” Boy, he sounds like a great guy, if you forget about all the killing.

Eitan, his various obituaries tell us, counted among his more spectacular exploits in support of his nation such operations as  the surgical strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, the systematic assassinations of the Palestinians responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, and the theft of at least 100 pounds of  enriched uranium from a nuclear fuel plant in the Pittsburgh area to assist Israel in its atomic bomb program. Eitan was the handler of Jonathan Pollard, the traitorous American Navy intelligence analyst who turned  over thousands of classified documents to Israel as its spy, and architect of  the operation that has been most celebrated in the various articles in the wake of his death, the capturing of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1960. Continue reading →