Hello,
as the person who wrote the piece under discussion I've been interested to hear what people think about the subject.
Just on thing that jumped out at me:
Quote:
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Another difference is that there is an intentionality behind terrorist killings that is not found behind the more common sources of death.
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I don't agree with that. It's just that the acceptable face of seemingly respectable governments here in the UK and US can get away with far, far more than terrorists ever have done, or will do. Such is the pervasive slant in mainstream reporting that we as a society are led to dismiss the attrocities carried out by our governments, and instead focus on the seemingly bizarre and fanatical obsessions of a bunch of foreigners.
Arms manufacturers, generally seen as perfectly legitimate businesses, make products which are designed to kill people. Surely there is a totally transparent 'intentionality' behind the killings which happen as a direct result of the sales of the products these companies produce.
While the companies themselves are not doing the killing, they are making the deaths more likely. What is even more grotesque is that governments, such as mine here in the UK will approve of export contracts to countries with horrendous human rights records, because big business wins the day, and the call for profit is more persuasive than the call for peace. How else can you explain that in the same year that Saddam Hussein gassed civilians at Halabja, UK export credits to Baghdad rose from £175 million in 1987 to £340 million in 1988?
Are you trying to argue that the corporations who profit from making cigarettes are not aware of the fact that tobacco is the only legally available consumer product which kills people when it is used entirely as intended?
How can manufacturers of alcohol not know about the far reaching fallout that results from the massive consumption of alcohol that occurs in even the UK alone?
Those are my thoughts...
Jim