Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2011-05-21 01:01 am
azurelunatic) wrote2011-05-21 01:01 am
Ethically Complex
Part of the reason I was so spaced out the night of 5/1 (originally "last night", but I can tell this is going to be another long-draft entry) is because I need to be able to write to process things. There's only so much processing you can do on Twitter, no matter how many different viewpoints get retweeted past you, and my processing takes place either on paper, or typed out on the screen. (Talking to my braintwin helps. ILU MISSKAT.)
Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the abhorrent terror attacks on the US on 2001 Sept 11, has been killed as part of an action by the United States military.
Transcription of President Obama's speech: http://particle-person.livejournal.com/284823.html
Reactions from various world leaders: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/05/20115241936984209.html
Obituary on Al-Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/05/20115251555423645.html
Various other links:
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/04/147782.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115272712668919.html
http://elf.dreamwidth.org/414160.html
http://hradzka.dreamwidth.org/417286.html
http://lettersfromtitan.com/2011/05/02/in-a-lot-of-ways-i-would-have-preferred-the-aliens/
He was, asapocalypsos put it so bluntly and eloquently: "a mass-murdering fuckstick". He was also a human being.
His death doesn't necessarily mean the end of his general views or his influence, but it does mean that he personally will not be able to further spread his variously appalling views. I respect the word of my Muslim brethren when they say that this mass-murdering fuckstick does not speak for them, nor does he practice their faith the way they'd have it practiced. He is dead. I saw on Twitter that some US military spokesperson said that bin Laden's body had been buried at sea according to Islamic law; I saw some other Twitter wit asking whether they'd found a mermaid Imam to authorize that.
So naturally I became curious about what actual Islamic law had to say about that, and some various searching later, I learned that the preferred method of laying a body to rest was burial with some particular refinements in aid of the deceased having their head facing Mecca, and that burial at sea was permissible when it was not possible to get the body to shore in a reasonable timeframe. So that had me frowning. The next section, however, suddenly made that make sense: in the event that one fears that the grave would be disturbed such that the body would be mutilated, then burial at sea is recommended. I do not think that anyone would argue that bin Laden had a lot of enemies. Judging from a very few entries on my LJ friends page and rather more entries on my Facebook news scroll, plus some helpful commentary from Twitter, it would have been even odds as to whether enemies or supporters got there first. There are different types and levels of reaction, and while the furthest that most of my circle were willing to go was relief that an enemy was dead, a couple were in favor of vicious desecration.
I believe that burial, in as much as it is something more than getting a dead body out of the way of the living, is very much a thing for the comfort of the living. Beyond just killing the guy, the way that the United States military treated the body of bin Laden would, will they or nil they, send a message to the world.
I'm pagan, so I'm living with the reality of a country that officially does not have a state religion, but is nonetheless majority-Christian. Pan-religious tolerance in the US is ... patchy. Sometimes there's an attempt to acknowledge that religions that aren't various forms of Christianity exist. Sometimes there's an actual attempt to accommodate the religion of whoever happens to have complained about it. It feels like most often anyone who isn't Christian or at least Abrahamic gets told to put up and shut up. There's a lot of un-acknowledged religious majority privilege in the US (see: most discussions in![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
debunkingxian, where I had to make a post about the non-Christian worker in the US before I could even finish this entry), and I think no small part of that plays out in foreign relations. Areas that aren't majority-Christian see that the United States is a very powerful force that tends to at least attempt to assimilate other cultures it touches (above and beyond that little habit of military involvement when oil-producing countries give an excuse), and see the majority-Christian nature, and become nervous.
So no matter what the United States did after killing him, it would be seen as a message. I believe that "Hi, this dead guy had a religion, and we are treating his body according to the customs of that religion, even though it is not Christian" is an important message to have sent. It offends my sense of fair play that the United States has got itself into a situation where it would have to be very careful that it was sending that message, but this is what happens when a religious majority who isn't careful about checking its own privilege gets in charge. (Any religion is prone to that, though I have a history of being particularly allergic to Christianity doing that, thanks to previous sensitization.)
I thought that I was all in theoretical favor of some hearty disrespecting-the-dead. Dancing on people's graves? Not nice, but generally all right, for sufficiently bad offenses. Then I saw some of the variously vile ideas that friends-of-friends on Facebook had. (Well, friends of relatives of friends. Same general principle.) And, just, eww. There were people who were taking the calculated offense to the level of a ridiculous art form, and then topping it, all with the sort of toxic rage that ... you know, sometimes they say better out than in, but.
There's being glad he's dead. Then there's the stuff I was seeing. And, ew. I don't want people who think like that even when sufficiently provoked anywhere near me or mine, not because I'm afraid that me or mine is going to sufficiently provoke them, but just in case something, anything, does, because even observing that rage is toxic to the bystander.
I've had a couple weeks to think about it, and I am glad that Osama bin Laden is dead. I recognize that, by extension, this does not say good things about my regard for the value of human life. Which means that I had better examine my ethical stack a little more closely. Someone, somewhere on the internet, gave a counterexample: what if a trained strike force from a majority-Muslim country crept into the US and assassinated a US citizen who had carried out significant war crimes overseas?
Strangely, or not so strangely to the people who know how my mind works, I am more okay with that than (for example) the US (or anyone else) launching explosives that take out large numbers of unarmed civilians, in addition to the armed and dangerous people they were aimed at.
Ideally I'd like a world where no one was killed by another human being, and we were making even more significant progress on disease and accident, but ... we've got this mess. People are going to kill each other over petty shit like beer and cigarettes, let alone cultural imperialism vs. plotting terror attacks and rejoicing when they succeed.
He was a mass-murdering fuckstick. He's dead. Members of the US military killed him. If it were a better world, maybe there could have been a trial. That would have been better, though after his general glee at being a mass-murdering fuckstick, I think the only people who could have given a fair trial would be people who are opposed to killing even mass-murdering fucksticks, and people who hate everyone involved equally.
Basically I have two major regrets about his death. One, it's really not compatible with a philosophy that values life, but given that I've previously death-wished specific rapists and bullies, that's not an ethical leg I can stand on anymore. People die, even good people, and thank fuck that monsters don't live forever. Two, I'm not convinced that it will stop anything. He still has buddies, and they may not have the same level of grudge, but they're still plenty disgruntled. There's no indication that the US is going to stop internal security theatre, and g-d only knows what our foreign policy is going to be like.
I'm not going to cry over a mass-murdering fuckstick when the US military is doing stuff that kills garden-variety soldiers, and civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or while US health care denies life-saving treatment to people who friends of friends know and love.
I could be glad he's dead. I was, for a couple hours. Mostly I'm just tired, and I'd like a better world, and I'd maybe even like to not be the sort of person who can be glad that another human being is dead.
Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the abhorrent terror attacks on the US on 2001 Sept 11, has been killed as part of an action by the United States military.
Transcription of President Obama's speech: http://particle-person.livejournal.com/284823.html
Reactions from various world leaders: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/05/20115241936984209.html
Obituary on Al-Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/05/20115251555423645.html
Various other links:
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/04/147782.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115272712668919.html
http://elf.dreamwidth.org/414160.html
http://hradzka.dreamwidth.org/417286.html
http://lettersfromtitan.com/2011/05/02/in-a-lot-of-ways-i-would-have-preferred-the-aliens/
He was, as
apocalypsos put it so bluntly and eloquently: "a mass-murdering fuckstick". He was also a human being. His death doesn't necessarily mean the end of his general views or his influence, but it does mean that he personally will not be able to further spread his variously appalling views. I respect the word of my Muslim brethren when they say that this mass-murdering fuckstick does not speak for them, nor does he practice their faith the way they'd have it practiced. He is dead. I saw on Twitter that some US military spokesperson said that bin Laden's body had been buried at sea according to Islamic law; I saw some other Twitter wit asking whether they'd found a mermaid Imam to authorize that.
So naturally I became curious about what actual Islamic law had to say about that, and some various searching later, I learned that the preferred method of laying a body to rest was burial with some particular refinements in aid of the deceased having their head facing Mecca, and that burial at sea was permissible when it was not possible to get the body to shore in a reasonable timeframe. So that had me frowning. The next section, however, suddenly made that make sense: in the event that one fears that the grave would be disturbed such that the body would be mutilated, then burial at sea is recommended. I do not think that anyone would argue that bin Laden had a lot of enemies. Judging from a very few entries on my LJ friends page and rather more entries on my Facebook news scroll, plus some helpful commentary from Twitter, it would have been even odds as to whether enemies or supporters got there first. There are different types and levels of reaction, and while the furthest that most of my circle were willing to go was relief that an enemy was dead, a couple were in favor of vicious desecration.
I believe that burial, in as much as it is something more than getting a dead body out of the way of the living, is very much a thing for the comfort of the living. Beyond just killing the guy, the way that the United States military treated the body of bin Laden would, will they or nil they, send a message to the world.
I'm pagan, so I'm living with the reality of a country that officially does not have a state religion, but is nonetheless majority-Christian. Pan-religious tolerance in the US is ... patchy. Sometimes there's an attempt to acknowledge that religions that aren't various forms of Christianity exist. Sometimes there's an actual attempt to accommodate the religion of whoever happens to have complained about it. It feels like most often anyone who isn't Christian or at least Abrahamic gets told to put up and shut up. There's a lot of un-acknowledged religious majority privilege in the US (see: most discussions in
debunkingxian, where I had to make a post about the non-Christian worker in the US before I could even finish this entry), and I think no small part of that plays out in foreign relations. Areas that aren't majority-Christian see that the United States is a very powerful force that tends to at least attempt to assimilate other cultures it touches (above and beyond that little habit of military involvement when oil-producing countries give an excuse), and see the majority-Christian nature, and become nervous. So no matter what the United States did after killing him, it would be seen as a message. I believe that "Hi, this dead guy had a religion, and we are treating his body according to the customs of that religion, even though it is not Christian" is an important message to have sent. It offends my sense of fair play that the United States has got itself into a situation where it would have to be very careful that it was sending that message, but this is what happens when a religious majority who isn't careful about checking its own privilege gets in charge. (Any religion is prone to that, though I have a history of being particularly allergic to Christianity doing that, thanks to previous sensitization.)
I thought that I was all in theoretical favor of some hearty disrespecting-the-dead. Dancing on people's graves? Not nice, but generally all right, for sufficiently bad offenses. Then I saw some of the variously vile ideas that friends-of-friends on Facebook had. (Well, friends of relatives of friends. Same general principle.) And, just, eww. There were people who were taking the calculated offense to the level of a ridiculous art form, and then topping it, all with the sort of toxic rage that ... you know, sometimes they say better out than in, but.
There's being glad he's dead. Then there's the stuff I was seeing. And, ew. I don't want people who think like that even when sufficiently provoked anywhere near me or mine, not because I'm afraid that me or mine is going to sufficiently provoke them, but just in case something, anything, does, because even observing that rage is toxic to the bystander.
I've had a couple weeks to think about it, and I am glad that Osama bin Laden is dead. I recognize that, by extension, this does not say good things about my regard for the value of human life. Which means that I had better examine my ethical stack a little more closely. Someone, somewhere on the internet, gave a counterexample: what if a trained strike force from a majority-Muslim country crept into the US and assassinated a US citizen who had carried out significant war crimes overseas?
Strangely, or not so strangely to the people who know how my mind works, I am more okay with that than (for example) the US (or anyone else) launching explosives that take out large numbers of unarmed civilians, in addition to the armed and dangerous people they were aimed at.
Ideally I'd like a world where no one was killed by another human being, and we were making even more significant progress on disease and accident, but ... we've got this mess. People are going to kill each other over petty shit like beer and cigarettes, let alone cultural imperialism vs. plotting terror attacks and rejoicing when they succeed.
He was a mass-murdering fuckstick. He's dead. Members of the US military killed him. If it were a better world, maybe there could have been a trial. That would have been better, though after his general glee at being a mass-murdering fuckstick, I think the only people who could have given a fair trial would be people who are opposed to killing even mass-murdering fucksticks, and people who hate everyone involved equally.
Basically I have two major regrets about his death. One, it's really not compatible with a philosophy that values life, but given that I've previously death-wished specific rapists and bullies, that's not an ethical leg I can stand on anymore. People die, even good people, and thank fuck that monsters don't live forever. Two, I'm not convinced that it will stop anything. He still has buddies, and they may not have the same level of grudge, but they're still plenty disgruntled. There's no indication that the US is going to stop internal security theatre, and g-d only knows what our foreign policy is going to be like.
I'm not going to cry over a mass-murdering fuckstick when the US military is doing stuff that kills garden-variety soldiers, and civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or while US health care denies life-saving treatment to people who friends of friends know and love.
I could be glad he's dead. I was, for a couple hours. Mostly I'm just tired, and I'd like a better world, and I'd maybe even like to not be the sort of person who can be glad that another human being is dead.
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Wouldn't it be nice if we spent as much energy and effort finding ways to get along as we did in finding ways to kill each other?
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