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Caius -> RE: 10 Captured Somali pirates "found dead" by Russians (5/12/2010 10:23:11 PM)
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I'm as aware as anybody of how caustic thompsonx can be; my recent first and only exchange with him is a study in that. However, that being said, I really don't see what is so unreasonable about his request that we try to contextualize the actions of these people. The few who have bothered to respond to that call have only done so to reply with something along the liens of "It really doesn't matter, their actions are inexcusable and whatever punishment they receive just." Well, I'm sorry, but like him, I feel that just doesn't cut it. And I'm not saying either way here whether I am sympathetic to the idea of their particular circumstances as mitigating factors to their actions, nor whether the Russian response was prudent or justified. These guys certainly aren't the first I'd go to bat for. What I'm saying is that complex problems require a complex analysis and that, more often than not, a "shoot them all and sort it out later" approach only digs all sides deeper.
Putting the question of whether the Russian military was justified in these executions and what our personal gut reactions are to that question for the moment, what is the harm in stepping back a moment and trying to gain some perspective? And for those who, like Panda, ask "What does it matter what their reasons were?", the reasons are multi-fold. Aside from the fact that true empathy (a powerful tool in the human perceptive arsenal) does not proceed until you have exhaustively studied a person's motivations, the study itself might present to you better options for resolving the problem than "eye for an eye", however viscerally pleasing that approach may be to us in certain circumstances. It may, in rare cases, even cause you to consider that you've been on the wrong side of an issue. The ability to re-evaluate our positions is the only thing which keeps us from becoming puppets to the increasing number of forces in the world that would prey on our emotions and deep-seated predispositions. To make blanket statements that "the particulars couldn't possibly matter" isn't just irrational, it often amounts to willful ignorance for the sake of convenience (not meant as a dig at Panda, rather a general commentary on this position).
Now, if I can speak to the specifics of this case, and still putting aside moral considerations, there are legal concerns here. Maritime law may be rather vague in terms of who has authority in such a circumstance, one thing this ambiguity does not do is grant states the right to summary executions. The many human rights treaties to which most modern states belong supersede here and quite clearly prohibit such behaviour. And thompson is right on another issue -- if we don't have principles when they are painfully inconvenient or even harmful to our cause, we don't have principles at all. Where the law is not applied equally to all it ceases to be something that elevates man and that provides him with stability and meaning for his actions and becomes just another socio-political contrivance.
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