Here's another kind of balancing of human rights. It comes from Martin Samuel in the Times, who's sounding off about the fact that steel from the World Trade Center buildings is being used in the construction of a warship for the US navy. I have no particular comment to make on that, but Samuel is full of a certain now very familiar kind of 'balancing' discourse:
[T]he 2,800 souls that perished [on 9/11] as an indirect result of an interventionist foreign policy...He knows, you see, exactly how the lines of cause and effect run. And he knows which cause of all possible causes he wants to focus on.
It could be that some of the dead might have thought over-reliance on warships was their downfall in the first place.It could be, but then here Samuel doesn't know. What the hell, invoke the thoughts of the dead anyway.
America came under attack because the actions of successive governments have made it the enemy to large swaths of humanity.Large swaths of humanity most of whom do not hijack civilian aircraft and fly them into buildings. And then comes the insurance clause:
While not excusing wicked acts committed by terrorists, it would be foolish to view the behaviour of terrorists as motiveless.Because the sentence is ill-constructed, one cannot be absolutely sure who it is 'not excusing wicked acts', but one must assume it's the writer himself. He's good enough, in any case, to share with us the thought that 'it would be foolish to view the behaviour of terrorists as motiveless'. Indeed it would, since there are motives for every human action, and no one is likely to think otherwise in this instance. (Thanks: AC.)
