Terrorism's executioner

[drdon326]

Failure to use force against murderous evil is invariably a stain upon all that is good. By declining the right to act as a lawful executioner in its struggle with terror, Israel would be forced by Camus' reasoning to embrace its own disappearance. Barring Mr. Sharon's disengagement, the Jewish state would never accept collective suicide. Why was Camus, who was thinking only in the broadest generic terms, so mistaken?

My own answer lies in his presumption of a natural reciprocity among human beings and states in the matter of killing. We are asked to believe that as greater numbers of people agree not to become executioners, still greater numbers will follow upon the same course. In time, the argument proceeds, the number of those who refuse to accept killing will become so great that there will be fewer and fewer victims. But Camus' presumed reciprocity does not exist, indeed, can never exist, especially in the jihad-centered Middle East. Here the Islamist will to kill Jews remains unimpressed by Israel's disproportionate contributions to science, industry, medicine and learning. Here there are no Arab plans for a "two-state solution," only for a final solution.

In counterterrorism, Jewish executioners must now have an honored place in the government of Israel. Without them, evil would triumph again and again. For Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Fatah, murdered Jews are not so much a means to an end as an end in themselves. In this unheroic Arab Islamist world, where killing Jews is both a religious mandate and sometimes also a path to sexual ecstasy and personal immortality, an Israeli unwillingness to use necessary force against terror will invite existential terror.


Sadly, killing is sometimes a sacred duty. Faced with manifest evil, all decent civilizations must rely, in the end, on the executioner. To deny the executioner his proper place would enable the murderers to leer lasciviously upon whole mountains of fresh corpses.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050530-094029-7128r.htm

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excellent op-ed

[Colorado Blue]

1. They're murdering innocent Muslims too, and others as well.

For what? Iraq is totally out of control and a mosque was blown up in Kandahar today. I'm afraid to look at the news.

And please, do not anybody try to say this somebody else's fault.
No it isn't. Blowing up innocent working people, people at prayer, people attending a funeral or just trying to go to work or get a job - it isn't right.

[bemildred]

2. Could we just leave Camus out of this?

What did he do to deserve getting dragged into this mess at
this late date?

[pelsar]

3. bemildred.....

come on everybody gets dragged in to this mess....why should he exempted? (and its never too late to join in this party)

[bemildred]

4. A decent respect for the long dead? nt