From: Osher Doctorow [log in to unmask], Sat. March 2, 2002 11:26AM
The simplest way to avoid the need for a statistics of violence is to have
non-violence or to defend oneself strictly speaking only if physically
attacked.
Nevertheless, the question often arises in life: what (statistical) strategy
should we use in responding to violence carried out by others upon others?
Probability-statistical game theory, statistical decision theory, operations
research, and various related fields try to develop such and similar
strategies. The empirical part of such strategies obviously involves
accumulating much data and many statistics. Much caution must be exercised
in the case of international violence, however, because news media and
governments and even statisticians dependent on government or corporate
support have deep conflicts of interest which affects both what they see and
hear and how they interpret it. Even refugees are not free from conflict of
interest, especially if they are seeking *political or economic asylum.*
There is a more theoretically interesting strategy. If you think that you
or your nation will be next on the attacked list, then it is wise to prepare
yourself and your nation, IF you or your nation is free from conflict of
interest in the sense that your nation is not a major perpetrator of what
the attack was designed to stop. When Hitler attacked Europe in 1939,
Europe was not a real perpetrator of anything against Germany or against
Hitler - the Versailles Treaty was long past, and it was a typical
historical response of nations to massive warfare and victory however
unwise. When the Sicilian Mafia spread to much of the world with its
indiscriminate sale of dope and prostitution and *protection* and murder to
enforce them, their victims did not have a plot against Sicily or some
massive guilt directed against the Mafia. However, when North Vietnam and
the Viet Cong attacked the South Korean government, there was a conflict of
interest which distinguishes that situation from the bin Laden situation
today. They were engaged in an act of rebellion against a division of
their nation and peope (the words *North* and *South* Vietnam are
interesting evidence of such a relationship) and also were explicitly part
of a communist movement which explicitly expoused attacking economic
dictatorship of the few against the many. The young people and workers in
the West who opposed the Vietnam War did not want to die for General
Electric, General Motors, or other corporations whose favorite slogan was
*What is good for General Electric (etc.) is good for the nation.*
All this does not mean that the West cannot respond to indiscriminate terror
as in the case of bin Laden and September 11. There is no conflict of
interest in opposing indiscriminate terror under any circumstances, whether
one is part of an economic dictatorship or an economic *democracy*. This
also applies to Israel's responses to the almost continual indiscriminate
terror from many Arab and non-Arab Moslem nations. In fact, none of the
Moslem nations is an *economic democracy*, aside from everything else, and
Islam whether Fundamentalist or not does not propose replacing economic
dictatorship by economic democracy. As for the Palestinians, they have
almost unlimited Moslem lands and space to which they can go. Israel has no
such unlimited lands and space. Its people have already lost 6 million
slaughtered by Nazi Germany, not to mention the numerous victims of Moslem
indiscriminate terrorism and previously Moslem anti-Israel warfare.
Osher Doctorow
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