The Ineffable “They”

February 11th, 2007 Posted in Of Interest

Barry Lando, whose book Web of Deceit I have on order, reminds us of the brutality of the British in putting down Kurdish uprisings with air power. Here is Wing Commander “Bomber Harris” in 1924:

[T]he Arab and Kurd … now know what real bombing means, in casualties and damage; they now know that within 45 minutes a full sized village … can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured by four or five machines which offer them no real target, no opportunity for glory as warriors, no effective means of escape.

Harris’ sadistic glee is not tempered by any notion of the innocence of the inhabitants: they are the great “they” of war, as in the reponse I typically hear from supporters of the Iraq war when confronted with its brutality: but “they” bombed us (i.e., flew planes into buildings). “They” meaning, of course, the Arab, but it is the Arab broadly conceived, and includes Persians and Kurds and so on. (Harris is only a little more precise distinguishing Arabs and Kurds).

Of course, the use of “they” is not tempered by appeals to evidence. It is of no use to point out that Iraq is unconnected to 9/11, or to talk about the varieties of ethnicities, religious belief, and political views in the Middle East. Likewise, I have had trouble convincing anti-American Europeans of the variety of American beliefs and temperments. But the notion of temperment really is the key here — “they” is a term of ethnic and religious indictment. As in the very nasty Instapundit:

Christians who want similar consideration from Google will presumably have to start blowing things up and beheading people.

It is the Oriental “they” that is guilty of such crimes, not particular idividuals who happen to be Arabs.

Consider how very different this is from the expressed views of most conservatives that they embrace “color-blindness” as one of the tenants of individualism and “individual responsibility.” Of course, historically there is no tension between conservativism and jingoistic nationalism.