Re: MORALITY: making tradeoffs (was: a topic we will not discuss)

From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Sep 17 2001 - 16:36:26 MDT


"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
>
> One of the things that seems likely to happen (if it already hasn't)
> is a removal of previous restrictions on the CIA from involving themselves
> with people with "dirty" hands. We seem to be returning to previous
> "conventional" solutions, that from what I can see were, in large
> part, responsible for creating the problem in the first place.
> Who will we be training or funding to resolve the "bin Laden" problem
> only to find them becoming the "bin Laden" of the next decade?
> Because "conventional thinking" seems unlikely to resolve the
> situation, I do not feel discussing "unconventional" solutions
> is something that should be suppressed.

If we are to only look at bin Laden, and at the arab cultural concept of
family honor, it is evident that the current state, where the family has
disowned him but let him keep his inheritance, is really insufficient by
arab standards. They created this monster, it is their responsibility
(at least as much as ours) for letting him continue to live. The large
bin Laden family does do many good things around the world and is fully
engaged in the global economy (one owns property in Boston and another
group donated several million bucks to Harvard and other educational
institutions), but it seems to me that they have been rather remiss in
tending to their own closet.

If an arab girl who is promiscuous must be killed by her father or
brothers, then what bin Laden has done mandates no less a debt of honor.



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