Leftist viewpoint of Desmond Tutu

By Charles A. Morse
web posted March 18, 2002

South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, in a March 13 interview with Dick Gordon on NPR affiliate WBUR in Boston, drew a moral equivalence between the Sept. 11th attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the loss of civilian life in Afghanistan resulting from the US military action against the al-Qaida and Taliban. He stated, in a charming and almost hypnotic manner, that the attack itself was caused by the "poverty, hunger and disease" plaguing the third world, which he blamed, by implication, on the US. He stated, with a slight pause and a nervous giggle, that no one in the world celebrated after Sept. 11th, which was, of course, a boldfaced lie. He characterized the US war against terrorism as a war of vengeance.

Tutu draws no distinction between the pre-meditated killing of approximately 3,000 innocent people at the World Trade Center, killed for being American, and the accidental killing of innocent people who, regrettably, died as the US fought against the al-Qaida militants who initiated the attack. He insisted, to a caller who challenged him, that both are the same since both involved the loss of innocent life. By failing to place the two situations in a proper moral context, he excused the deliberate killing of Americans while employing atrocity propaganda to describe the accidental and regrettable deaths of Afghans. No doubt, innocent civilians were also regrettably killed during the allied landings on the Normandy beaches on D-Day, June 1944.

Leftists like Tutu view America, with our freedom, prosperity, and moral compass, as representing the main obstacle to the "progressive" socialist fantasy. An increasingly cacophonous clamor of leftist voices, exemplified by Tutu, are expressing the view that the loss of American life, as happened on Sept. 11th, is a just punishment for the collective sin of American freedom and economic achievement. The reasoning goes that since the American system is inherently evil, an American military response to this attack is reactionary to progress.

The left explains the success of American society as resulting from the exploitation of the less successful nations of the world. The "haves" are successful because they have somehow stolen from the "have-nots" is how this theory works. To admit that American success derives from human freedom, limited government, and moral standards, would be to acknowledge the bankruptcy of their own philosophy. They would have to accept the burden of responsibility themselves for their own failed system. To go a step further, the left would have to examine the cause of the murder, according to the Black Book of Communism, of over 100 million people at their hands.

The third world, due to its adaptation of variations of authoritarian socialism, is solely responsible for its own poverty and misery. The Islamic world, for example, has no middle class, no democracy, or no conception of private ownership of property. They shift the blame for their failure to America by promoting conspiracy theories such as that American oil companies are responsible for their oppression yet, what would happen if American oil companies decided to embargo Islamic oil and our government turned to domestic production instead?

No Bishop Tutu, there is a moral difference between the hijacking of airplanes and the killing of thousands of innocent people and the accidental loss of life resulting from the actions of a nation trying to legitimately defend its people and way of life. No Bishop Tutu, we are not to blame for the "poverty, hunger, and disease" in the rest of the world as they have created their own socialist hellholes with the advice and support of people who espouse your oppressive beliefs. And as far as the emotion of vengeance is concerned, when applied legally and in response to such a grievous crime, vengeance can be a necessary component toward the restoration of law and order.

Chuck Morse is a talk show host at WROL 950 AM in Boston.

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