Wednesday, January 16, 2002

How the death toll can be justified

By DAVE HAMRICK
Editor-at-large

Last week I did a little soul searching vis a vis the horrible death toll of our campaign against terror in Afghanistan.

And I raised some questions about whether we can justify those deaths deaths of people who are no more deserving of it than were the business people and public safety workers who disintegrated into the rubble Sept. 11.

Some people in this country may feel that these innocent deaths are justified on a quid pro quo basis. "They" killed so many of our people and frightened the rest of us, therefore we're justified in killing so many of "them."

Or perhaps some are even so self-centered as to believe that the lives of Third World people are worth less than the lives of people in the "civilized" world.

To be sure, they're worth less to the cowards who perpetrated 9/11. To them, there is no sanctity to life. If half the world must die today in order to make their religion preeminent, then so be it.

But that sort of thinking is not completely foreign to some here in this "enlightened" land. Life has become cheap here in recent decades as well.

I'm sorry if it's a cliche the fact that Hollywood contributes greatly to the cheapening of human life is a cliche because it is true. Watch ... really watch ... one of the more violent movies some time.

I'm not preaching here, because I enjoy a good shoot-'em-up as much as anyone. But while I can appreciate the artistry, in the back of my mind I'm always disturbed, not by the violence itself, but by the fact that the few main characters seem to be the only ones worth mourning.

A thousand innocent people get brutally blown away, but when the leading man's brother gets it, we have to stop and have a long, drawn out, melodramatic, tear-jerking scene.

And then when the finale comes and the bad guy gets his, the few remaining central characters end the movie chuckling at bad jokes and riding off into the sunset. If there's any mourning at that point, again it's only for those close to the central characters.

I'm not going to go into great detail on this next. You either understand it that way or you don't, but I believe this nation's penchant for abortions also contributes to an overall cheapening of life.

Last week, I raised questions I didn't answer, and I'm not going to answer them now either, because I don't think the answers will be known for some time. Maybe they won't be known until the issue is the subject of historical writing rather than current events.

But I will lay out what I think are some reasonable guidelines for making that determination.

First, if those deaths are not to have been in vain, we must continue this fight against terrorism until the threat is severely diminished worldwide ... so much so that we can say with reasonable certainty that more lives were saved than were taken.

Second, we must act in the future as if we have learned a valuable lesson that we cannot supply arms and training to terrorists just because at the moment they happen to be terrorizing our enemies.

The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

Third, this whole episode will be a little easier to live with in the future if it causes us to put some serious long-term thinking into our foreign policy.

I believe we need to consider installing some moral absolutes in our foreign policy. Yes, we have to deal with situations as they are, and every government we deal with is not going to share our feelings on human rights.

But there must be a line we will not cross. There must be a minimum standard of human rights that governments are held to if they want to have commerce with the U.S., and a more stringent standard for those we would prop up with financial aid.

If we say we are providing "humanitarian" aid to a nation with an oppressive government, then we're going to have to do whatever is necessary to make sure those in need are the ones who get the aid and it's not siphoned off by the oppressors.

Am I saying we should be the world's moral police?

No.

Am I saying that the hatred that is directed toward us by groups like al Quaeda is justified?

No.

But I'm saying that, in trying to work in our own self-interest in the world, we've gotten caught backing the wrong horse more than once, and that hurts our credibility. I'm saying we need to begin working more in our enlightened self-interest.

Groups like bin Laden's are composed of brainwashed fanatics led by self-serving cynics who build a power base by blaming their own shortcomings on Israel and the U.S.

But behind every lie, there's always some truth. If a government is treating its people brutally, and we prop up and help maintain that government, in the eyes of those people it's as if we were the ones brutalizing them.

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