Can we resist temptations towards fallacious contextualisation?
These comparisons are examples of a wider problem – the use of contextualisation to distract attention from the need for a morally and politically adequate response to the terrorist massacre. It will not do to say that the United States had itself committed, condoned or failed to prevent similar crimes against others. Not only do such claims, however true, provide not a scrap of justification or excuse for what was done – by themselves they also fail to provide a sufficient guide to our actions in the aftermath. However not only anti-war activists, but sceptical press and even academic commentary, have frequently substituted political and economic analysis of the Middle East and Central Asia for a serious response to the massacre. Partly this is a matter of political habit – we all know how American policy has sustained Israeli occupation in the West Bank, and so on. And this certainly helps explain why many Arabs and Muslims hate America and sympathise with Bin Laden. So while relevan
