Our
destiny in their bloody hands
What is a just reaction to an unjust action?
Mehdi
October 12, 2006
iranian.com
In the supposed linear world presented by politicians -- for every
unjust action there must be a reaction. Not only to stop future
similar actions, but for revenge purposes as well. Most likely
a frame of thinking taken from the Old Testament: An eye for an
eye.
However what such thinking doesn't take into consideration
is that in most cases the relationship between action & reaction
in the world of politics tends to operate on a parabolic cycle
rather than a linear path with a certain ending. Which then begs
the question at what point does the reaction(s) of a nation against
unjust and inhumane action of others justifiable? Justifiable not
only from the usual moral & ethical perspectives but also from
points pertaining to economic, political and even societal.
To better
explain let me go over two events, first
the 9/11 attacks and then the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
As a result of the attacks on 9/11/01 by those men who were influenced
by Al Qaeda ideologies approximately 2,973 people which by the
way not all were Americans lost their lives. This event led citizens
of the countries that were effected by this attack mainly U.S.
and NATO countries to allow their governments to first invade Afghanistan,
and then Iraq in a war that was meant to fight terrorism, but one
that I presume meant to avenge the loss of those who lost their
life on 9/11.
However the irony is that as this seemingly never
ending war against terrorism is continuing more people (both innocent
civilians & military
service men & women) are dying in an effort to avenge the lives
of those killed by those 19 men who already had died. In the first
war in Afghanistan so far 330 US soldiers have died while 560 injured,
and in the second war in Iraq another 2,662 US soldiers have given
their life, while another 9,062 injured (Source:
US Dept.
of Defense). To these we need to add another ~70 death
for the troops from NATO serving in Afghanistan, and another ~227
death by coalition forces in Iraq.
Now here I haven't even touched
on the other victims of the war which are the Afghan and Iraqi
civilians! Some studies put Iraqi
civilian death toll to be around 100,000 to 655,000 while others
that only use reported deaths in the media put the estimate
at ~40,000. President Bush himself conceded on the ~30,000
figure. As far as
Afghan's well the casualty on their side is estimated to be ~15,000.
So all in all as a whole somewhere around 48,000
to maybe 118,000 (I know pretty wide range) have died in the past
5 years as a result
of 9/11. Moreover these figures don't even include the sudden
spike in terrorism and casualties post 9/11 -- e.g. attacks in
Bali,
Madrid, London that caused the death of even more people. Of
course this is just looking at it from purely the perspective of
those
who lost their lives and not from all of the other consequences
of such actions such as economic cost and economic trade-offs
($ on weapons vs. $ on education) of waging such a war, America's
reputation in the world, social impacts of those that somehow
have
been touched by this war and etc ...
In the other example of challenges
and dilemmas in reacting
against inhumane actions I can't help but to think of the 1979
revolution in Iran. Recently I had an exchange of thoughts with
a friend after I shared a 2003 revelation by an Iranian political
activist Emad Baghi. In his book "A
Survey Of Iran's Revolution" he devoted a brief section to
a review of actual death toll pre 1979 revolution. His findings
which were as a result of having access to Martyrs Foundation (Bonyad
Shahid) data showed that during the year of 1963-1977 where opposition
groups were accusing the Shah's regime of horrible atrocities a
total of 383 people were killed by the regime.
After the revolution
started in 1977 and ended in 1979 an additional 2,781 people were
killed for a total sum of 3,164. This is while many opposition
leaders including Khomeini frequently throw around figures of ~60,000
for the same time period! In fact while in exile in an interview
in 1972 Khomeini cleverly suggested that it had been told that
in the 1963 uprising 15,000 were killed by the regime, whereas
the actual figure was 32! Such exaggerations continued on and in
fact were elevated during the period of 1977-79 after each account
of friction between the regime and revolutionaries. For example
in one of the supposed bloodiest days of revolution (17th Shahrivar)
in 1977 actual data showed 64 people were killed, whereas many
in the opposition, and foreign media sources put the numbers to
be around 4,000 and some even 10,000!
In both the 9/11 attacks and
1979 Iranian Revolution the citizens in these countries had to
make a choice in how to address such
atrocities. Although the situations have hugely different circumstances
and history behind them, but in as far as the over reaction of
the citizens they do share some commonality. At what "end" does
both the mean and the outcome justify the cause? Does killing 15,000
Afghan and another 40,000 Iraqi justify having 3000 killed by mainly
Saudi men? Does killing 1000 Lebanese for having 2 soldiers taken
prisoner, and 3 killed justify both the mean and outcome?
Does
having a revolution that was mainly inspired on the death of
supposed 60,000 people (actually 383), and then having another
2,781 die
during the revolution and an additional ~4,000 more executed
afterward -- all justify the cause of having democracy? In fact
in Iran's
case one can also take it one hyothetical step further by wondering
had it not been for the revolution and Iran's relation with U.S.,
Iraq probably would not have had attacked Iran, or at least the
war would not have been as long as it was. Thus raising the possibility
that had it not been for Iranians over reaction to the horrible
atrocities done by the Shah's regime to the 383 people , just
maybe -- maybe another approximate 450,000 - 1,000,000 Iranians
wouldn't
have died during the war with Iraq!
Now here I must explain that
my comments are not meant to
suggest that no fights are worth fighting for -- no that is not
my position. I'm all for holding guilty people accountable, and
punished, and I can see the rational for some nations to wage wars
or even have revolutions. At what levels and what reactions it
makes them justifiable -- well that has to be answered on
an individual bases, as I don't have a formula for say the threshold
of death on both the side of aggressor and victim in making it
a just or an unjust reaction. Having said that I do think that
if the reaction will cause the death of multiple more people, then
maybe as much as killing one innocent person idealistically is
equivalent to killing all innocent people, but since realistically
it doesn't then it may be best to just accept what happened --
however tough it may be, and find an alternative approach.
Lastly
my main point is that I think all responsible citizens must make
sure that their political leaders have exhausted all peaceful
means in trying to stop future unjust actions before allowing
them to resort to war or say revolution -- which could lead to
killing
of many others. This of course requires accepting the responsibility
of making sure we are informed enough so we are not manipulated
into allowing those with their own agendas, and not so well thought
out plans to change the course of our destiny.
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