Blowback

[UPDATE - more considerations on my Tumblr here]

Writing in the Guardian, Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) explained why western nations can end up as targets and victims of violence:

"The answer is actually well-known and well-documented. As explained by the CIA, the Pentagon, former CIA agents, and British combat veterans, spending decades bombing, invading, occupying, droning, interfering in, imposing tyranny on, and creating lawless prisons in other countries generates intense anti-American and anti-western rage (for obvious reasons) and ensures that those western nations will be attacked as well. In the London case, the attacker cited precisely such anger at US/UK aggression as his motive ("this British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. . . . the only reason we killed this man is because Muslims are dying daily"). Those are just facts."

Glenn Greenwald - US violence is "noble" and "civilised" while Muslim violence is "primitive" and "without rational cause"

Following the murder of drummer Lee Rigby, bloggers Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan crossed keyboards and battled it out. The issue: Greenwald called it "a barbaric and horrendous act"; but fell short of calling it "terrorism". The premise being that Rigby was a soldier, not a citizen. Since America and Britain had declared the whole globe as a battlefield, the attack was a reaction to this. But as Glenn explained, by highlighting the cause, he does not seek to justify the act. As he said:

"People reflexively try to radically distort the argument beyond recognition in order to smear you as a Terror apologist, a Terrorist-lover or worse, all for the thought crime of raising these issues. To do so, they deceitfully conflate claims of causation (A is one of the causes of B) with justification (B is justified). Anyone operating with the most basic levels of rationality understands that these concepts are distinct. To discuss what motivates a person to engage in Action B is not remotely to justify Action B."

He then approached the related issue that the west has a boundless compulsion to depict others as the "Uniquely Primitive and Violent Evil." He said:

"Our violence is understandable, noble, well-intentioned, necessitated by their pure evil. By stark contrast, their violence is sub-human, senseless, and utterly unrelated to anything we do."