Putting the Dead to Good Use

I'm breaking from my self-imposed hibernation to blog about this disturbing piece by Tom Hayden which wastes no time in using the casualties in London to make a case for withdrawal in Iraq. Let me make my point clearer -

a. I am not in favour of the Iraq war, and am all in favour of those who make sensible and clear cases against the war.

b. I am, however, against using victims of terrorist attacks as some sort of a justification for my stance in opposition to the war (which is essentially what Hayden is doing). These were innocent men and women and I'm shocked that they're being used as mere tokens in a political game. My fear is that making them purely instrumental in a debate of concern not only demeans the fact that these were human beings who died, who had valuable lives and contributed value to the community in which they lived, but also loses those of us against the war the moral highground. Hayden's argument is the Terry Schiavo case of the left - it uses individuals purely as political ends, and denies them dignity and humanity in death.

c. Interestingly, Hayden's post doesn't even once mention the terrorists who were responsible for the attacks, or the general moral illegimitacy of terrorist movements which target innocent civilians (whether in Baghdad or London). It is a diatribe against regimes which "forcibly occupy Muslim lands in the oil-driven search for dominance", but no mention of the forcible occupation of our public space and lives by a hate-driven lust for terror...

Well, that's my point of view. What do you think? Also, Andrew Sullivan gets it so much better.

Prithvi.