Wright defends controversial comments

Not for those of us who think.

 

Neither one.

 

Incorrect. I will now prove that the following distinction, characterized as "idiotic" is indeed a real distinction:

1. The US deserved X.
2. Actions of the US caused X to happen

Consider an analogy: Fred is sitting in his bathtub watching CNN with the TV propped perilously on the edge of the tub. The TV tips into the tub and poor old Fred is electrocuted.

Does Fred "deserve" to die? I would say not, we all make stupid mistakes - Fred has made an error in judgement, not committed a moral transgression for which he should be put to death in punishment.

Did Fred "cause" his unfortunate demise. Sadly, yes. Fred's actions led to his death.

 

Abandoning Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out and leaving a vacuum that the Taliban filled and then al Qaeda allied itself with the Taliban and found a safe haven there. That was mighty irresponsible if one thinks about it.

 

No. The chain you present is clearly incorrect. A woman walks down the street in a skimpy dress. A man is "caused to be aroused" (there is a clear causative factor here). This does not mean that one can reason as follows (as your are suggesting)

1. The woman caused arousal in the man
2. The woman is responsible for this arousal
3. The woman is to blame for this arousal
4. This justifies a subsequent sexual assault by the man.

No one thinks like this (at least no one reasonable). It simply does not follow that if agency A has some causal role in a sequence of events, that if that sequence of events then comes back to bite A, we conclude that A "deserves" what he/she got. Its not that simple.

 

That's the key point, Andre. Reasonable thinking. Some folks on the radical right and the radical left in this country don't fit that description.

 

Begs the question by merely asserting that the US did nothing irresponsible. If you can defend this assertion, please do. I have never claimed that the US, in fact, did things that "caused" 911. I merely raised it as a possibility.

 

If you don't understand the connection to the ability of al Qaeda to pull off the 9/11/2001 attacks then you should really read a lot more and post a lot less.

 

Al Qaeda's faulty religious views are the cause; however, its ability to attack the United States on 9/11/2001 is clearly related to our nation's actions in leaving a vacuum in Afghanistan from which it could operate.

 

Obviously no thinking person will dismiss the possibility that any government has engaged in activities that are causally linked to some outcome. So how about we turn to what Wright said and see whether what he said is consistent with a claim that the US "deserved" 911?

The distinction I have drawn is real. If Wright is merely saying that that US governmental actions "caused" 911, then this not equivalent to an assertion that the US deserved 911.

 

all due respects, KenH.

but whether the US had been stupid in Afghanistan after the Soviet "era" there or not, bin Laden, or any terrorist, determined enough, can launch an operation from anywhere.

It just so happened that there was a favorable condition created by the filling of the Taliban of the void created by the Soviet withdrawal.

when Martial Law was declared in my country in 1972 everything was strictly watched by the military. curfew at 10 pm to 5 pm, radio stations and tv stations monitored and controlled, checkpoints day and night everywhere in the city, most of the known activists and underground fighters jailed, or in hiding.

yet we were able to stage lightning demos, paralyze transportation, create bottlenecks where troops and cops were to pass to respond to the lightning demos.

four of us were responsible for the dictator encircling the city with his crack troops believing that a good sized attack by the underground was about to be carried out.

all we did was to take propaganda flyers on top of four high rise building and let the wind blow it all over the area, and we did this five times in one day in different spots of the city, right under the noses of the dictator's military and police machine.

all that was needed was determination, planning, logistics, and men dedicated enough to do the job.

al-qaeda had all these, then.

 

True. However, I don't assume that al Qaeda would have found as favorable a situation elsewhere prior to 9/11/2001.

 

Just as veterans can turn traitor like Kerry did, veterans can be unpatriotic.

Wright's primary problem is that he is a racist and sees everything through those lenses.

 

They're not.

"You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come on you."

His thinking that America is committing acts of unspecified terrorism led to 911.

 

If I recall correctly he has specified what he considers to have been acts of terrorism - dropping the two atomic bombs on Japan.

I thoroughly disagree with his characterization. The atomic bombs may have saved one million American casualties and many times that amount of Japanese casualties, including Japanese civilians.