Evil & Reflections on the bombing of the Baghdad pet market

**Boon Mee** · 04-02-2008, 04:00 AM

In another thread, the subject of good/evil was brought up with some folks coming down on the side of 'it's all subjective'.

Read the piece below and have another 'think' on that, would you?

Reflections on the bombing of the Baghdad pet market

"They were easy to spot at the bus stop. Serious. Neat in a painstaking sort of way. Very deliberate. Each afternoon a group of slightly retarded but functional young adults boarded the bus at a nearby interchange in a group on their way home. One had a daughter, but the man -- who in his mind would forever be a boy -- was single. He happened to live a short distance away from my mother. And there was a girl he had his eye on. One Valentine's Day I saw him in a long-sleeved shirt with a tie, a change from his normal working attire with a bunch of flowers, which he held beside his bag and badly folded copy of the Daily Telegraph. He was on his way to a date. And then he disappeared from view. Some months later I learned why.

His neighbors in a public housing development finally called emergency services after noticing his apartment, though lit, never had anyone come in and out of its doors. The paramedics found him long dead in his bed, cause of death unknown. His television set was still going.

It is the suffering of the children that most makes us question the existence of God. Al-Qaeda's attack on a pet market in Baghdad, which disproportionately killed pets and children raise the question of why the world is so cruel to its most innocent, unless it were cruel in itself. Fyodor Dostoevsky, in considering the Problem of Evil, tells the story of sadistic tradesman who whipped an overloaded donkey across his eyes. His description of how the poor animal struggled forward, stumbling sideways at once encapsulates the character of evil and of innocence. How can a world in which there is cruelty to donkeys and children be one in which there is hope? It's understandable that soldiers should die. But why, why should the children and the pets die for a few column inches of newspaper propaganda space?

The only possible answer lies in the generosity of love. In its inextinguishability. A young man considering a family asked me once what the hardest thing about having children was. I answered that it was knowing your child was mortal and that you could not protect him from the hurts of the world. It's that feeling of helplessness that keeps parents awake at night. But as the child grow into a man, by some miracle the perceptions become mutual. If you asked a young man what his greatest fear was, he might reply it was the knowledge that someday his parents would die. One of the most interesting scenes in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ occurs when Mary sees Jesus stumbling under the Cross on His way to Calvary, and Mary for a moment sees Him as the child He was, falling by the wayside. She rushes forward but then she reaches Him, He turns the tables, and the Child becoming the Parent and says, "See Mother, I make all things new!". He would save the world to save His mother.

When one day my son grew old enough to realize that I would someday die he asked what heaven would be like. I told him I did not know, but told him what I believed: that for as long as we did nothing infamous, shameful or evil that naught could keep us apart. And that was our pledge on the way to school: that we would strive to remain worthy of each other. And that is the pledge we renew each day; a pledge that is made each day by fathers who walk in the rain to buy a loaf bread and a bottle of milk from the local gas station or the men who are even striving now to find the killers of the parakeets and the children. We strive to keep away the darkness with the fragile screen of love.

The odds don't matter. It's what we believe we must do. But faith requires memory. It needs us to remember the retarded young man boarding a bus, with his bouquet of flowers and tabloid newspaper long after his apartment has been cleared out; it requires that we never forget the smiles of those who delighted in goldfish and cats and dogs in that instant before a temporary darkness came. It requires we believe that no act of courage is ever forgotten, no gesture of love is ever futile, that not a sparrow falls to earth without the stars weeping. That our lives are a flower whose blossom we have not yet seen. This is who we are; and al-Qaeda shall not prevail."

The Belmont Club: Reflections on the bombing of the Baghdad pet market

**keda** · 04-02-2008, 10:39 AM

A wise person once told me, don't talk of shadows to a blind man.

**sabang** · 04-02-2008, 10:48 AM

Al Qaeda shall not prevail.

**britmaveric** · 04-02-2008, 10:48 AM

Scraping the bottom of the barrel getting mentally handicapped to blow themselves up!!

**AntRobertson** · 04-02-2008, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

In another thread, the subject of good/evil was brought up with some folks coming down on the side of 'it's all subjective'.

Read the piece below and have another 'think' on that, would you?

Ditto the following, taken from an actual news report and not an overly emotional treatise invoking the name of God:

Five soldiers charged in Iraq rape-murder case

(CNN) -- Four U.S. soldiers in Iraq are charged with participation in the "rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and three members of her family," the U.S. military said Sunday.

A fifth soldier is accused of dereliction of duty for failing to report the offenses.
All five are charged with conspiring with former Pfc. Steven D. Green to commit the crimes, the military said, in connection with the incident in March in Mahmoudiya, Iraq...

... Prosecutors have said Green shot and killed an Iraqi man, woman and child before raping a young female from the same family and killing her.

A Justice Department affidavit says Green and other soldiers planned to rape a young woman who lived near the checkpoint they manned in Mahmoudiya.
The affidavit says three soldiers allegedly accompanied Green into the house, and another soldier was told to monitor the radio while the assault took place.
The affidavit says Green shot the woman's relatives, including a girl of about 5; raped the young woman; then fatally shot her.

Soldiers are quoted in the affidavit as telling investigators that Green and his companions then set the family's house afire, threw an AK-47 rifle used in the killings into a canal and burned their bloodstained clothing...

How do the moral absolutists reconcile this with the notion of pure 'Good and Evil'? Are the actions of these men and others like them 'Good' by virtue of the fact they're fighting on the side of 'Good' (God) against the forces of 'Evil' (Allah)? How does this fit with the notion of determining absolutes of 'Right and Wrong', 'Good and Evil'?

Or is it all a relative, and subjective, moral judgment? Are there in fact shades of grey...

**sabang** · 04-02-2008, 11:21 AM

There are shades of grey auntie, but there is also Evil.

**AntRobertson** · 04-02-2008, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

but there is also Evil

I don't doubt it. My point is talking in terms of absolutes is inherently flawed. Particularly in the context of war.

And speaking of context this needs some. It sprung from posts in the 'Hillary' thread (subsequently moved to MKP) where Boon Mee was talking about things like 'moral leprosy' and 'diseased souls'.

**stroller** · 04-02-2008, 12:01 PM

Shades of grey don't enter the black & white mind-set...

**Butterfly** · 04-02-2008, 12:25 PM

I have come to the conclusions that it's impossible to talk politics with most Americans, they are just too ignorant and incurious, that is even more true with the Bushies, they are just not there, and they don't have the brain capacity

3D perpective on a 2D mind

**Boon Mee** · 04-02-2008, 08:20 PM

Originally Posted by sabang

There are shades of grey auntie, but there is also Evil.

Exactamento...

**AntRobertson** · 04-02-2008, 10:33 PM

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by sabang

There are shades of grey auntie, but there is also Evil.

Exactamento...

Booners,

You are aware that's exactly what I was saying, right.

**Mr Earl** · 05-02-2008, 06:00 AM

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

How do the moral absolutists reconcile this with the notion of pure 'Good and Evil'? Are the actions of these men and others like them 'Good' by virtue of the fact they're fighting on the side of 'Good' (God) against the forces of 'Evil' (Allah)? How does this fit with the notion of determining absolutes of 'Right and Wrong', 'Good and Evil'?

Or is it all a relative, and subjective, moral judgment? Are there in fact shades of grey...

Bravo from a nation of over 300 million you can find a few examples of aberrant human behavior. Genius!

And you think these aberrations constitute an moral equivalent to evil represented by the Islamic suicide murderer whose policy is to commit atrocities.
Impossible to discuss these things with someone afflicted with such a one dimensional hatred that will equivocate pure evil.

**Boon Mee** · 05-02-2008, 06:03 AM

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by sabang

There are shades of grey auntie, but there is also Evil.

Exactamento...

Booners,

You are aware that's exactly what I was saying, right.

Talking in terms of absolutes is flawed I'll agree with but I must have missed where you were saying there is inherent Evil?

Charles Manson
Pol Pot
Adolph Eichmann & so forth were 'evil' human beings.

**Mr Earl** · 05-02-2008, 06:13 AM

Originally Posted by Butterfly

I have come to the conclusions that it's impossible to talk politics with most Americans, they are just too ignorant and incurious, that is even more true with the Bushies, they are just not there, and they don't have the brain capacity

3D perpective on a 2D mind

Would you "feel" if airliners full of fuel and innocent people were to flown into the Louvre killing thousands?

**Mr Earl** · 05-02-2008, 06:21 AM

Originally Posted by stroller

Shades of grey don't enter the black & white mind-set...

Not when it comes to the equivocation of evil. This sort of evil is unequivocal.

**Butterfly** · 05-02-2008, 09:31 AM

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Would you "feel" if airliners full of fuel and innocent people were to flown into the Louvre killing thousands?

911 was just a minor incident, next

**AntRobertson** · 05-02-2008, 09:37 AM

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Impossible to discuss these things with someone afflicted with such a one dimensional hatred that will equivocate pure evil.

You've missed the point Earl. Entirely. That also makes discussion difficult.

**keda** · 05-02-2008, 09:58 AM

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Originally Posted by "Mr Earl"

Would you "feel" if airliners full of fuel and innocent people were to flown into the Louvre killing thousands?

911 was just a minor incident, next

911 may have been a trivial event in respect to the loss of two buildings and a few thousand people and a few billion dollars, against the capacity of the US alone and without the rest of the free world to bear far far worse, so if that's what you mean then I agree wholeheartedly...but it was a major historical incident as the landmark and catalyst for the next political decade with repercussions to the other half of this century if not well beyond.

**obsidian** · 05-02-2008, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by keda

but it was a major historical incident as the landmark and catalyst for the next political decade with repercussions to the other half of this century if not well beyond.

which is why the usa needs to calm down, stop looking to feel better by attacking countries that had nothing to do with it and be vigilant against a continued political self fullfilling prophecy of jesus chasers, good -- hooded evil godless heathens (with big oil), bad.

**Mr Earl** · 05-02-2008, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Would you "feel" if airliners full of fuel and innocent people were to flown into the Louvre killing thousands?

911 was just a minor incident, next

What about the French willingness to protect a cultural treasure at any cost?
Which in the past has lead them down the path of equivocating evil.

**Mr Earl** · 05-02-2008, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Impossible to discuss these things with someone afflicted with such a one dimensional hatred that will equivocate pure evil.

You've missed the point Earl. Entirely. That also makes discussion difficult.

Oh the point about the "few" bad apples(the USA) apposed to the whole barrel being rotten(Islamic fundamentalism)?

**AntRobertson** · 05-02-2008, 10:24 AM

^ No Earl, there was no comparison made. At least not in the way you appear to think there was.

**Butterfly** · 05-02-2008, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by keda

but it was a major historical incident as the landmark and catalyst for the next political decade with repercussions to the other half of this century if not well beyond.

never underestimate the short attention span of the American politicians and public for that matter,

All this non-sense will be forgotten as soon as Bush leave the WH, until the next attack is carried out successfully on American soil,

Reality is catching up with the public, it's a unwinnable war, the terrorists have won already, and the US unconditionally surrendered to their demand (leave SA, restrict freedom, and pray God)

**Mr Earl** · 05-02-2008, 11:10 AM

^I guess I'd better run out and see if I can get some lucrative foot bath contracts.

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