venstresida.net

About moral relativism:

You do not need to be a moral relativist to believe that killing thousands of civillians by bombing from high altitudes simply to keep your own military casualties at a minimal level is morally discusting, or to phrase it in the american right-wings own words: "Chicken shit".

This does not diminish the moral outrage over terrorist activities like 11/9 2001 (or 1973 for that matter).

The fact that you think that people at both sides in a conflict are behaving in a morally despicable way, does not make you a moral relativist, in fact, I find this to be the rule rather than the exeption in most historical armed conflicts.

I do however think some acts of violence are more justified than others. I will for example again mention the partisan activity during world war 2. Although methods sometimes were used in which civilians were killed, I believe that these often were justifiable (I will not say this on a general basis, as there will undoubtedly be exeptions also here).

Had the goals of the American war on terror really been peace, freedom and democracy, I would have applauded it, as, I believe, would most muslims, however, neither the current situation, or the history of american foreign policy supports such a theory.

If these are the goals of the US in the region, then why do they support Saudi-Arabia and Kuwait, two muslim countries who are about as undemocratic as you get? One rouled by a royal family, the other by a native elite, while the majority of the population are "guest workers" under slave contracts with no rights whatsoever.

The fact is that these regimes are very unstable, and the US fears that if these regimes are toppeled, their strategic control of the area and its resources will vanish. Therefore it is neccesarry for the US to get another client country (preferably more) in the region, and the first step in this project is Iraq (which seems to fail, as the current violence is only increasing the antagonisms both within Iraq, and between Iraquis and the occupying forces).

Since the US has supported people like Suharto, Pinochet, Somoza, the Shah, Saddam and so on, and generally has supported just as many dictators as they have toppeled, it is not hard to draw the conclusion that the reasons behind american foreign policy is not ideal ones, but simply to protect american interests abroad. This can of course lead to both positive and negative changes for the people inhabiting the countries, but it is hardly a democratic world society...