Thursday, June 16, 2005

People who say stupid things, part 1
Chris Matthews:
My big concern is, the longer you keep them, the angrier they get. Eventually, you are going to send them home. Maybe the smarter thing is to execute everyone down there, because if you‘re going to send them back to the Arab world or the Islamic world angry as hell at us, they‘re going to be doing dirty stuff against us, right?

Yes, the smart way to keep people from hating us is to kill hundreds of people with no due process. Hundreds of people who might be mere passers-by, kidnapped for the bounty, who have never been charged with a crime, and who have had no meaningful chance to address the accusations made against them. The best way to make the world respect us and our values is to kill their citizens on the first assumption of guilt.

Matthews is correct in that we have created a horrible problem for ourselves by throwing away our stated values and committing the sort of injustice we have with the "enemy combatants," but committing an even greater repudiation of our values and an even greater injustice is not the solution. A wrong and an even bigger wrong do not make a right.

Previously noted by Atrios.

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