Regarding the execution of Anwar Al-Awaki's son & Blowback from American Exceptionalism.
Ending what causes Blowback is the solution, but what do we do meanwhile, a couple of generations at least probably, as blowback from ALL directions dies out.
Word-fundamentalists want us to sacrifice people to whatever their favorite word-artifact is. If it's wrong to sacrifice people, then that goes not only for Anwar Al-Awaki's son, it also goes for those who die because other people act in the same manner as that to which he and those who executed him have clearly dedicated themselves.
If we say both of those conditions are un-acceptable, and yet, quite possibly also, unavoidable because of the differences between legal words and the complex and convoluted realities those words are supposed to mitigate, why must we ALWAYS wait until after-the-fact, until after one or n thousands of people are dead or dying, before we do anything about what has a high probability (identified by specific criteria) of taking those lives? If any one life matters, why don't those other lives matter?
I know this principle was horrifically and profoundly abused with the Invasion & Occupation of a sovereign nation of INNOCENT people known as Iraq, so it scares me deeply to think these thoughts, but . . . .
To me, it all leads to the point that who we are as individuals is the most important thing, not, needful though they may be, our law/words. Ultimately what happens is the result of who/what each person is and hence each person's behaviors, ALL of it. Words can never compensate for that phenomenology.
Law/words mostly point the way. The rest is up to each person. It's our individual OVER reliance on externalized forms of authority, usually codified in words, that leads us to becoming the cheerleading squad for immoral and illegal wars that cause immoral and illegal blowback-wars that causes further reliance on ever more and more conglomerated externalized forms of codified authority.
I look forward to the day, after all of the blowback and the blowback-on-the-blowback~, if we make it that far, when our law-words will be enough and, because of who people are as individual persons, the gap between our (un-necessary) codes and who we are isn't such a threat to so many people. But, **IF** each and every person is a treasure of opportunity for that day to come, then so is not only Anwar Al-Awaki's son, but also all of those who die because of what he and those like him, including his executioners, are at this particular point in **OUR** evolution.
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-12-04/news/30475928_1_anwar-al-awlaki-drone-attack-underwear-bomber
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