Hitting Back: The False Idea Of Justice
October 7, 2006 marked the 5th year in the war on Afghanistan. I didn't write about it on the anniversary because I was too pissed off. But now I'm back! And I have a story for you.
On Saturday, I took my friend's 4-year-old son, Zack, to the park to play. Somewhere during the course of the afternoon, another kid, also 4, hit him. Zack came crying to me and everyone on the playground stopped to watch.
As this is probably not the last time Zack will get hit by another child, I thought it best to try to give him the skills needed to deal with a future encounter where no parents are around.
Unfortunately, the grandmother of the girl, Sarah, who'd punched Zach, sat nearby and became very embarrassed by the attention. Zach was reluctant to my coaching, which just dragged the situation out. Finally, Sarah's grandmother had enough. She marched over, hit Sarah on the wrist and told Zack it was okay for him to punch her back. (Seems like this was not an isolated event for little Sarah).
I tried to explain my approach, but the grandmother had lost her patience for the whole affair. When Zach didn't move, she reached out, took his hand and hit her granddaughter with it. There. Even Stephven. And she stalked away while the two of us watched her, stunned.
Ah, justice, that elusive goal. Now, it's true, I didn't see the initial punch. Zach, as he claimed, could have just been playing angelically on his own and this little beast could have come up and, urged by the evil in her heart, laid him out. And maybe if Zach had punched her back, just as hard, it would have magically stopped her from hitting anyone else for the rest of her life. Right? Yeah, right.
If this child had hit without provocation, a thrashing by Zach would not have solved the problem. Because he was never her problem to begin with. But this is about Zach and not Sarah. Would Zach really have felt vindicated by punching her back? Perhaps, if he is the type of child who constantly is on the lookout for a excuse to punch. But that attitude creates a child like Sarah, not Zach. Zach just wanted an apology and not to be hit again. Which seemed reasonable. Kids mess up all the time. They need to be shaped, not branded.
Much as I love Zach, I doubt he was 100% blameless for the encounter. Which adds a whole new dimension to the problem. Unfairness. Sarah could have been delivering her own Even Stephven punch to an action by Zach. Like I said, I didn't see it, I wouldn't know. So if Sarah got punished for evening the score and doing back to a child what was done to her then the lesson of justice and fairness blew up in her face.
Burned once, the next instance of fairness on her part might be much more subtle, although just as hurtful. A painful word. A not-so-accidental shove. An ambush when no one is looking. Whatever method she chooses, we know Sarah is not going to develop into a child who can show empathy, forgiveness or justice. She will be a child who is angry, vengeful and out for a fight at any provocation. Because she has been shown that no matter the circumstances, she bound to different rules. Elusive rules. Rules that threaten her.
Now I have been criticized before for taking complex issues of the war with Afghanistan and 9-11 and breaking them down into a simple playground analogy. I am not trying to make light of the deaths suffered in September of 2001, or the subsequent deaths from October 2001 to the present. I remain appalled by the actions of men who use planes as weapons of terror against civilians.
But the idea of unfairness is what is ruining any positive outcome from our Even Stephven actions of retaliation. We have a sense of security for delivering punishment to those in Afghanistan. But it is false. It doesn't solve the problem. It creates thousands of others.
The same intelligence that couldn't save us from 19 men armed with only box cutters and a warped, exploited sense of anger and justice, told us the mastermind hid himself away in Afghanistan. Trained there. Recruited there. Dug himself the ultimate foxhole in the rocky mountains.
They told us he was supported by the government of Afghanistan. Were this the 100% truth, it would not have provided enough justice to attack that country. Because our problem isn't with the majority of Afghanis. It is with a small group of individuals who operate without regard for human life or dignity. Who remain careless toward improving the conditions of the people they rule and rejoice in the deaths of others.
Though an accurate depiction of some of the people involved, it is not the 100% truth. Torn by over 20 years of war (war that came partially funded and extended by the United States), Afghanistan was in the midst of a civil war at the time we demanded bin-Laden. There was no elected government, for the people, by the people and of the people. The Taliban steered the helm only in their own eyes. The world did not recognize them as the legitimate government of the country. The Afghanis did not either.
So how could they receive the blame? How could we punish an entire nation based on their actions. The Taliban, horrible as they were, had no direct hand in 9-11. The allowed bin-Laden to train in their country, but we allowed the terrorists themselves to train in ours. I don't recall Bush bombing Florida for teaching Ziad Samir Jarrah, pilot of flight 93, how to fly.
Killing the man responsible for killing 2,997 American's might be someone's idea of justice done. But it won't rebuild the towers, it won't bring people back from the dead, it won't make US safer. Collective punishment of 30 million people through violence, starvation, fear and contempt hurts us as well. Not just because this leads to future actions by terrorists, but because it turns us into terrorists.
A wise friend of mine once said, we resort to violence when we feel we've run out of options. In Afghanistan, we didn't even try any other options. Instead, we copied a chapter from the book of bin-Laden and brought destruction and pain to people who will now be seeking their own brand of justice.
All this, and five years after the fact, we still don't have the man we were after in first place. Five years later and bin-Laden remains free and in control of an ever expanding group of extremists, feeding off the blood of our destruction.
~Lila Schow
Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government
http://goodusgov.org/
On Saturday, I took my friend's 4-year-old son, Zack, to the park to play. Somewhere during the course of the afternoon, another kid, also 4, hit him. Zack came crying to me and everyone on the playground stopped to watch.
As this is probably not the last time Zack will get hit by another child, I thought it best to try to give him the skills needed to deal with a future encounter where no parents are around.
Unfortunately, the grandmother of the girl, Sarah, who'd punched Zach, sat nearby and became very embarrassed by the attention. Zach was reluctant to my coaching, which just dragged the situation out. Finally, Sarah's grandmother had enough. She marched over, hit Sarah on the wrist and told Zack it was okay for him to punch her back. (Seems like this was not an isolated event for little Sarah).
I tried to explain my approach, but the grandmother had lost her patience for the whole affair. When Zach didn't move, she reached out, took his hand and hit her granddaughter with it. There. Even Stephven. And she stalked away while the two of us watched her, stunned.
Ah, justice, that elusive goal. Now, it's true, I didn't see the initial punch. Zach, as he claimed, could have just been playing angelically on his own and this little beast could have come up and, urged by the evil in her heart, laid him out. And maybe if Zach had punched her back, just as hard, it would have magically stopped her from hitting anyone else for the rest of her life. Right? Yeah, right.
If this child had hit without provocation, a thrashing by Zach would not have solved the problem. Because he was never her problem to begin with. But this is about Zach and not Sarah. Would Zach really have felt vindicated by punching her back? Perhaps, if he is the type of child who constantly is on the lookout for a excuse to punch. But that attitude creates a child like Sarah, not Zach. Zach just wanted an apology and not to be hit again. Which seemed reasonable. Kids mess up all the time. They need to be shaped, not branded.
Much as I love Zach, I doubt he was 100% blameless for the encounter. Which adds a whole new dimension to the problem. Unfairness. Sarah could have been delivering her own Even Stephven punch to an action by Zach. Like I said, I didn't see it, I wouldn't know. So if Sarah got punished for evening the score and doing back to a child what was done to her then the lesson of justice and fairness blew up in her face.
Burned once, the next instance of fairness on her part might be much more subtle, although just as hurtful. A painful word. A not-so-accidental shove. An ambush when no one is looking. Whatever method she chooses, we know Sarah is not going to develop into a child who can show empathy, forgiveness or justice. She will be a child who is angry, vengeful and out for a fight at any provocation. Because she has been shown that no matter the circumstances, she bound to different rules. Elusive rules. Rules that threaten her.
Now I have been criticized before for taking complex issues of the war with Afghanistan and 9-11 and breaking them down into a simple playground analogy. I am not trying to make light of the deaths suffered in September of 2001, or the subsequent deaths from October 2001 to the present. I remain appalled by the actions of men who use planes as weapons of terror against civilians.
But the idea of unfairness is what is ruining any positive outcome from our Even Stephven actions of retaliation. We have a sense of security for delivering punishment to those in Afghanistan. But it is false. It doesn't solve the problem. It creates thousands of others.
The same intelligence that couldn't save us from 19 men armed with only box cutters and a warped, exploited sense of anger and justice, told us the mastermind hid himself away in Afghanistan. Trained there. Recruited there. Dug himself the ultimate foxhole in the rocky mountains.
They told us he was supported by the government of Afghanistan. Were this the 100% truth, it would not have provided enough justice to attack that country. Because our problem isn't with the majority of Afghanis. It is with a small group of individuals who operate without regard for human life or dignity. Who remain careless toward improving the conditions of the people they rule and rejoice in the deaths of others.
Though an accurate depiction of some of the people involved, it is not the 100% truth. Torn by over 20 years of war (war that came partially funded and extended by the United States), Afghanistan was in the midst of a civil war at the time we demanded bin-Laden. There was no elected government, for the people, by the people and of the people. The Taliban steered the helm only in their own eyes. The world did not recognize them as the legitimate government of the country. The Afghanis did not either.
So how could they receive the blame? How could we punish an entire nation based on their actions. The Taliban, horrible as they were, had no direct hand in 9-11. The allowed bin-Laden to train in their country, but we allowed the terrorists themselves to train in ours. I don't recall Bush bombing Florida for teaching Ziad Samir Jarrah, pilot of flight 93, how to fly.
Killing the man responsible for killing 2,997 American's might be someone's idea of justice done. But it won't rebuild the towers, it won't bring people back from the dead, it won't make US safer. Collective punishment of 30 million people through violence, starvation, fear and contempt hurts us as well. Not just because this leads to future actions by terrorists, but because it turns us into terrorists.
A wise friend of mine once said, we resort to violence when we feel we've run out of options. In Afghanistan, we didn't even try any other options. Instead, we copied a chapter from the book of bin-Laden and brought destruction and pain to people who will now be seeking their own brand of justice.
All this, and five years after the fact, we still don't have the man we were after in first place. Five years later and bin-Laden remains free and in control of an ever expanding group of extremists, feeding off the blood of our destruction.
~Lila Schow
Because Responsible Citizens Clean Up After Their Government
http://goodusgov.org/
posted by Lila Schow at
10:54 PM
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