Belmont Club:
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The question is what principle is being preserved. Is it the ideal of opposing the death penalty? Or is it, as I argued in an earlier post, the power to regulate the recognition of a Third World citizen's death? It is no mean prerogative and all that separates the Cambodian Killing Fields from My Lai; Basilan from Beslan; and Darfur from Kosovo. It is a time honored practice to enlarge or nullify a outlander's death depending on its relevance to a political agenda. Walter Duranty exercised his redactive discretion to great effect. The big problem with September 11 is not that it happened but that it happened where it could not be ignored. The central challenge facing every propagandist of a certain type today is how to make it disappear; how to explain the datum away, either by misdirection or plain neglect, until the cherished facade can be resurrected in its full glory. Yet it will remain a facade; and the matchstick-sized bones and toddlers toys will remain unquiet; forgotten by us but if there is any justice, not unremembered.
"And he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."
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