(if you are reading this post in full in kottu archive that is due to an error in kottu. see note below for the correct blog location )
that is the question peaceniks avoid answering. why? let us examine the question.
ltte pussies oppress sri lankans, especially tamils in north and east provinces, and commit various crimes. they violate human rights. they and their leader have been convicted of these crimes numerous times. as long as they are allowed to act with impunity sri lanka will not be able to enjoy sustainable peace. they should be brought to justice. it is sri lankan government's duty to bring them to justice. given armed ltte's well demonstrated nature, that inevitably requires use of violence.
violence and war are ugly and costly. this is not a hollywood movie where only the villains suffer, die, and always lose. in war people suffer and die, not only the terrorists but also security forces personnel and innocent civilians. horrific accidents are inevitable. few non ltte criminals or sickos may make use of it for their own ends. terrorists too will score some successes.
(i am not saying that we should accept innocent or security forces deaths, accidents, non ltte criminals, or terrorist victories, with indifference. such things should be prevented and reduced as far as possible and responsible people held accountable. but those things do inevitably accompany violence of all kinds. they have done so in the past and will do so in the future, here is sri lanka and elsewhere in the world.)
only justifiable decision
we sri lankans in general know all that. faced with the above question we have decided. we do approve the use of violence against terrorists if needs be. imo this is the only morally and pragmatically justifiable answer to that question.
we know that as long as ltte is there, fellow sri lankans will be deprived of freedom, justice, democracy, and human rights. nor will sri lanka reach its full potential when a large section of it is ruled by a fascist megalomaniac like big pussy prabhakaran. we also know that not using violence, letting ltte terrorists act with impunity, and appeasing them so that we may have some 'peace' in colombo, will not work. appeasement of terrorists and fascists have never worked anywhere at any point in history.
given all that anyone who admits the possibility of moral judgment will admit the validity of the moral justifications for the use of violence against ltte. only completely unrealistic idiots or completely corrupt ltte sympathizers will oppose the possible use of violence against ltte.
imo once that decision is taken to use violence against ltte, all sri lankan governments will eventually be forced due to limited resources of the country, to adapt a pragmatic strategy like the one adapted by the present administration. as such victory in this war will take a long time. that is the reality.
peacenik avoidance
as i said peaceniks always avoid expressing a clear opinion with regard to the use of violence against terrorists when directly confronted with above question. however, their general mindset, writings, and actions, imply that they prefer non violence against ltte above all else.
(to clarify i include among the peaceniks the likes of paikiasothy saravanamuttu, jehan perera, jayadeva uyangoda, kumar rupasinghe, sunila abeysekera, sunanda deshapriya, and their underlings working in such peacenik ngos as centre of policy alternatives(cpa) and free media movement (fmm) like sanjana hattotuwa. while few young unimportant peaceniks may be naive pacifists with cocooned lives unable to think for themselves, others cannot use stupidity as an excuse)
they have always advocated appeasement of terrorists through giving ltte (as opposed to democratic ne tamil representatives who can come in when ltte is gone) more power over north east. they accepted without protest ltte's anti democratic claims to be sole representative of tamils. they remained silent in the face of ltte violence and provocations, only opening their mouths if and when government retaliated to condemn it (eg. throughout cfa, esp during december 2005 to april 2006 when sl militray endured almost daily attacks by ltte without responding and during mavil aru closure). in fact they are extremely reluctant to unambiguously criticize ltte for anything and if they are forced to criticize ltte due to some horrible atrocity, they always take care to couple gosl in the condemnation. at any given point of time what they say is identical to what ltte propaganda is saying. they are also quick to attack anyone who advocates violence against terrorists and to label him or her a sinhala chauvinist.
their preference for non violence against terrorists is also apparent in their frequent allegation about human rights violations by government or military. most such allegations stem from absurd white van conspiracy theories dreamed up by ltte spin office, others are merely the inevitable consequences of use of violence against terrorists including accidents or actions of few criminals or crazies. they have so far been unable come up with any evidence for any deliberate action or policy by the government or the military to violate human rights of sri lankans. this lack of evidence does not prevent them from continuing to parrot ltte when freely slandering the military as a whole. such freedom itself is a contradiction of their allegations.
peace at any cost
in other words "peace at any cost" seems to be their governing idea. however when confronted with the fact that 'peace' with ltte can only came at the cost of human rights, justice, democracy, and freedom, and the sheer immorality of appeasing terrorist oppression, they run to take refuge behind platitudes about conflict resolution, peace building theory, etc. to hide their moral bankruptcy.
sri lankan general public (and those who govern the country on their behalf) do not have the luxury of taking refuge behind platitudes or theories. they have to deal with ltte and its terrorist crimes here and now. they are in fact dealing with it in the only morally justifiable way possible.
how to stay relevant if others decide and one doesn't
at no point have peaceniks ever admitted the possible moral necessity of defeating ltte militarily in spite of all too clear ground situation and history. however some of them have said that if government is going to use violence against ltte terrorists ( presented as primarily motivated through personal political ambitions of president and other politicians) and if people are being mislead by media controlled by the state to support the use the violence against ltte ( they underestimate the public and overestimate the media in general and state control of them in particular, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.) they should try to influence how the government is going to use violence. note the ifs.
in other words this kind of peacenik will also avoid clearly answering the question (though making it clear that their sympathies lie with non violence against terrorists). however aware that they will be left in behind by the sri lankan public and lose all relevance because of this, they want to gain some relevance by pretending to have some sort of right to dictate how the government should be using the violence. basically they try to dictate the limits of a course of action about whose moral justifications and causes they have no real idea and do not even admit the existence. needless to say few peaceniks who have attempted this have ended up spouting hypocritical inconsistent nonsense.
moral rights and responsibilities
whether people like peaceniks who intentionally avoid confronting the reality have a moral right to criticize those who have taken the responsibility to confront it head on, is a question we all have to ask.
of course this being a free country everybody is free to say whatever they want. that includes immoral hypocritical rubbish peaceniks spout. it is the genrel public who will decide the validity (moral or otherwise) of their statements. let us confine ourselves to exposing their actions, their avoidance of reality, and their disgusting immorality with regard to terrorist crimes. sri lankan public in general have realized the truth about peaceniks. some naive foreigners who still give them the benefit of the doubt (mainly because they being foreigners do not have to face sri lankan reality) will eventually realize the truth about them.
in any case peaceniks should be confronted with the reality whenever they try to spout their hypocritical nonsense and asked express their opinion about the use of violence against terrorists unambiguously, so that everyone can judge what kind of people they really are.
ps
an example of avoidance of such questions was recently displayed in groundviews blog of peacenik sanjana hattotuwa. it occurred ironically in a post entitled "getting rid of the ltte: a few questions". i will not directly link to that blog due to various reasons including continuing censorship at groundviews. you have to go through a google search. this would also make these links valid even when sanjana hattotuwa eventually deletes growndviews blog as he did his old moju blog to cover up his despicable actions there; readers can then go to google cache of the deleted blog.
in the comments section of that post sanjana hattotuwa eventually resorted to his usual trick of censoring my comments. as a result my answers to suntzu, sh, and adharmishta, who addressed me directly were not published. so was my comment challenging sanjana hattotuwa's statements esp. his 'plucked from thin air' invention and attribution to me of several statements i have never made. (isn't it ironical that this low life holds forth in his ict4appeasement blog about blog codes of conduct while denying something as simple as right of reply). then again such despicable misbehavior is his nature; i am not at all surprised.
he also censored at the same time a comment by me in the post entitled "darfur vs. sri lanka" pointing out in some detail the errors made by the poster regarding the data and conclusions. i will probably deal with that later in another post. such falsehoods and errors can only exist in a place where freedom of expression is curtailed. while sanjana hattotuwa may want to live in a fantasy removed from reality by censoring anything that questions his false beliefs, sri lanka at large is a free country where we can point out and expose his and peacenik's lies.
-
note
due to an error in kottu blog aggregator a full copy of this post became available at this kottu archive location. the original blog post is in lanka libertarian blog at
http://llibertarian.blogspot.com/2007/05/use-of-violence-against-ltte-terrorists.html
that is the question peaceniks avoid answering. why? let us examine the question.
ltte pussies oppress sri lankans, especially tamils in north and east provinces, and commit various crimes. they violate human rights. they and their leader have been convicted of these crimes numerous times. as long as they are allowed to act with impunity sri lanka will not be able to enjoy sustainable peace. they should be brought to justice. it is sri lankan government's duty to bring them to justice. given armed ltte's well demonstrated nature, that inevitably requires use of violence.
violence and war are ugly and costly. this is not a hollywood movie where only the villains suffer, die, and always lose. in war people suffer and die, not only the terrorists but also security forces personnel and innocent civilians. horrific accidents are inevitable. few non ltte criminals or sickos may make use of it for their own ends. terrorists too will score some successes.
(i am not saying that we should accept innocent or security forces deaths, accidents, non ltte criminals, or terrorist victories, with indifference. such things should be prevented and reduced as far as possible and responsible people held accountable. but those things do inevitably accompany violence of all kinds. they have done so in the past and will do so in the future, here is sri lanka and elsewhere in the world.)
only justifiable decision
we sri lankans in general know all that. faced with the above question we have decided. we do approve the use of violence against terrorists if needs be. imo this is the only morally and pragmatically justifiable answer to that question.
we know that as long as ltte is there, fellow sri lankans will be deprived of freedom, justice, democracy, and human rights. nor will sri lanka reach its full potential when a large section of it is ruled by a fascist megalomaniac like big pussy prabhakaran. we also know that not using violence, letting ltte terrorists act with impunity, and appeasing them so that we may have some 'peace' in colombo, will not work. appeasement of terrorists and fascists have never worked anywhere at any point in history.
given all that anyone who admits the possibility of moral judgment will admit the validity of the moral justifications for the use of violence against ltte. only completely unrealistic idiots or completely corrupt ltte sympathizers will oppose the possible use of violence against ltte.
imo once that decision is taken to use violence against ltte, all sri lankan governments will eventually be forced due to limited resources of the country, to adapt a pragmatic strategy like the one adapted by the present administration. as such victory in this war will take a long time. that is the reality.
peacenik avoidance
as i said peaceniks always avoid expressing a clear opinion with regard to the use of violence against terrorists when directly confronted with above question. however, their general mindset, writings, and actions, imply that they prefer non violence against ltte above all else.
(to clarify i include among the peaceniks the likes of paikiasothy saravanamuttu, jehan perera, jayadeva uyangoda, kumar rupasinghe, sunila abeysekera, sunanda deshapriya, and their underlings working in such peacenik ngos as centre of policy alternatives(cpa) and free media movement (fmm) like sanjana hattotuwa. while few young unimportant peaceniks may be naive pacifists with cocooned lives unable to think for themselves, others cannot use stupidity as an excuse)
they have always advocated appeasement of terrorists through giving ltte (as opposed to democratic ne tamil representatives who can come in when ltte is gone) more power over north east. they accepted without protest ltte's anti democratic claims to be sole representative of tamils. they remained silent in the face of ltte violence and provocations, only opening their mouths if and when government retaliated to condemn it (eg. throughout cfa, esp during december 2005 to april 2006 when sl militray endured almost daily attacks by ltte without responding and during mavil aru closure). in fact they are extremely reluctant to unambiguously criticize ltte for anything and if they are forced to criticize ltte due to some horrible atrocity, they always take care to couple gosl in the condemnation. at any given point of time what they say is identical to what ltte propaganda is saying. they are also quick to attack anyone who advocates violence against terrorists and to label him or her a sinhala chauvinist.
their preference for non violence against terrorists is also apparent in their frequent allegation about human rights violations by government or military. most such allegations stem from absurd white van conspiracy theories dreamed up by ltte spin office, others are merely the inevitable consequences of use of violence against terrorists including accidents or actions of few criminals or crazies. they have so far been unable come up with any evidence for any deliberate action or policy by the government or the military to violate human rights of sri lankans. this lack of evidence does not prevent them from continuing to parrot ltte when freely slandering the military as a whole. such freedom itself is a contradiction of their allegations.
peace at any cost
in other words "peace at any cost" seems to be their governing idea. however when confronted with the fact that 'peace' with ltte can only came at the cost of human rights, justice, democracy, and freedom, and the sheer immorality of appeasing terrorist oppression, they run to take refuge behind platitudes about conflict resolution, peace building theory, etc. to hide their moral bankruptcy.
sri lankan general public (and those who govern the country on their behalf) do not have the luxury of taking refuge behind platitudes or theories. they have to deal with ltte and its terrorist crimes here and now. they are in fact dealing with it in the only morally justifiable way possible.
how to stay relevant if others decide and one doesn't
at no point have peaceniks ever admitted the possible moral necessity of defeating ltte militarily in spite of all too clear ground situation and history. however some of them have said that if government is going to use violence against ltte terrorists ( presented as primarily motivated through personal political ambitions of president and other politicians) and if people are being mislead by media controlled by the state to support the use the violence against ltte ( they underestimate the public and overestimate the media in general and state control of them in particular, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.) they should try to influence how the government is going to use violence. note the ifs.
in other words this kind of peacenik will also avoid clearly answering the question (though making it clear that their sympathies lie with non violence against terrorists). however aware that they will be left in behind by the sri lankan public and lose all relevance because of this, they want to gain some relevance by pretending to have some sort of right to dictate how the government should be using the violence. basically they try to dictate the limits of a course of action about whose moral justifications and causes they have no real idea and do not even admit the existence. needless to say few peaceniks who have attempted this have ended up spouting hypocritical inconsistent nonsense.
moral rights and responsibilities
whether people like peaceniks who intentionally avoid confronting the reality have a moral right to criticize those who have taken the responsibility to confront it head on, is a question we all have to ask.
of course this being a free country everybody is free to say whatever they want. that includes immoral hypocritical rubbish peaceniks spout. it is the genrel public who will decide the validity (moral or otherwise) of their statements. let us confine ourselves to exposing their actions, their avoidance of reality, and their disgusting immorality with regard to terrorist crimes. sri lankan public in general have realized the truth about peaceniks. some naive foreigners who still give them the benefit of the doubt (mainly because they being foreigners do not have to face sri lankan reality) will eventually realize the truth about them.
in any case peaceniks should be confronted with the reality whenever they try to spout their hypocritical nonsense and asked express their opinion about the use of violence against terrorists unambiguously, so that everyone can judge what kind of people they really are.
෴
ps
an example of avoidance of such questions was recently displayed in groundviews blog of peacenik sanjana hattotuwa. it occurred ironically in a post entitled "getting rid of the ltte: a few questions". i will not directly link to that blog due to various reasons including continuing censorship at groundviews. you have to go through a google search. this would also make these links valid even when sanjana hattotuwa eventually deletes growndviews blog as he did his old moju blog to cover up his despicable actions there; readers can then go to google cache of the deleted blog.
in the comments section of that post sanjana hattotuwa eventually resorted to his usual trick of censoring my comments. as a result my answers to suntzu, sh, and adharmishta, who addressed me directly were not published. so was my comment challenging sanjana hattotuwa's statements esp. his 'plucked from thin air' invention and attribution to me of several statements i have never made. (isn't it ironical that this low life holds forth in his ict4appeasement blog about blog codes of conduct while denying something as simple as right of reply). then again such despicable misbehavior is his nature; i am not at all surprised.
he also censored at the same time a comment by me in the post entitled "darfur vs. sri lanka" pointing out in some detail the errors made by the poster regarding the data and conclusions. i will probably deal with that later in another post. such falsehoods and errors can only exist in a place where freedom of expression is curtailed. while sanjana hattotuwa may want to live in a fantasy removed from reality by censoring anything that questions his false beliefs, sri lanka at large is a free country where we can point out and expose his and peacenik's lies.
-
note
due to an error in kottu blog aggregator a full copy of this post became available at this kottu archive location. the original blog post is in lanka libertarian blog at
http://llibertarian.blogspot.com/2007/05/use-of-violence-against-ltte-terrorists.html
9 comments:
LTTE is going to carry out many attacks in colombo. I hope you will write with the same gusto when your family is blown apart.
Terrorists should be treated as terrorists.
Anonymous is threatening to blow our families apart, remember, that's what terrorism is. And that’s exactly what we shall defeat.
be careful. someone might knock on your door to say hello.
anon at 5/14/2007 5:49 am
read the post first and point to any racism. pl qoute.
or if you cannot just stew in your own prejudices
anon at 5/14/2007 7:38 am
i will write what i want the way i choose. ltte pussies cannot affect that.
ltte will carry on murdering until it is stopped. efforts to stop it will only redouble with each murder
mahasen:
yes ltte terrorism should be recognized for what it is and defeated.
terrorist apologists should be exposed
anon 5/14/2007 7:53 pm
don't believe that everyone is like you
Only sinhala chauvinists support the war, because only they think they can win the war. The tamils are fighting for survival, not to win.
As the Archbishop of Canterbury said, we don't want to see anyone win the war. Give the Northeast to the ISGA now! All rise against the corrupt capitalist male chauvinist government of Rajapassa.
anon 5/17/2007 10:54 am
real racists are those who think (like you) that tamils in sri lanka support ltte terrorists. ltte is a bunch of criminals who have been responsible for most of tamil suffering here.
anyone who wants rule of law to flourish and to see that all sri lankans enjoy the benefits of peace, human rights, democracy, and freedom would support any effort to defeat ltte. such an effort would require use of violence against ltte.
there is no other morally justifiable alternative.
you and your ilk who want to give power to ltte ( which would be the case for instance if isga is implemented now) just want ltte, its terrorism and its oppressions to flourish in return for a unsustainable peace. appeasement has never worked anywhere ever
s/nut - the continuing Delgoda saga calls for a moral response similar this article. hope you can write one
Nice writeup again sittingnut. Please continue to write articles, I would suggest sending some of them off to the papers for possible publication. I'm being serious here. Your analyses make sense and are compelling reading, it is a shame it is only accessible to Sri Lanakns through this blog (not dissing your blog, just saying it would be wonderful to have a bigger reach).
violence is caused by both sides. history bears witness to that. instead of solving the conflict, why write articles to ignite flames of hatred rather sow the seeds of unity. the common man is affected not the government or the LTTE. when we on the ground unite only can sri lanka ever have peace.
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