On Munich
I have written several times about Steven Spielberg’s new movie, Munich, without having actually seen it. But my little man (which is a reference to the film featured in our current NAME THAT MOVIE! competition) told me that this Munich would be a shallow morality play equating Israel’s security agency with Palestinian terrorists. And I think my little man is right.
Captain Ed has actually seen Munich and writes thusly:
After giving the matter quite a bit of thought, I finally decided to see Munich at the theaters in order to make up my own mind about the film and the controversy that surrounds it. The film, which informs the audience that it was “Inspired By True Events”, takes the bare bones of the Munich massacre and the Israeli intelligence operation which followed against the Black September organization which plotted it and turns it into … well, an interesting if ultimately bankrupt morality play.
…
By equating the two sides, Spielberg and the world gave the perpetrators of terrorism the same moral standing as its victims, especially when the victims sought to ensure that their enemies could not live long enough to plan more such attacks. It’s like saying that the perpetrators of Lidice were certainly naughty, but the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich was just as bad. It’s absurd, and the absence of any mention of this fundamental, yawning chasm between the Israelis and the PLO/Black September terrorists provide the only true allegory that Munich provides — the defeatism in which Avner and his compatriots indulge (in the film) matches perfectly with the Left’s moral equivalency of Islamist terrorists and their unwillingness to fight against their ascendancy.
I needn’t tell you what a propaganda victory this is for the other side. The Jew Spielberg agrees that Mossad is evil!
UPDATE: In the Comments to this post, Phil wrote,
The point of Munich is that when you set out to kill for moral reasons, you often end up creating a moral reason for someone else to kill. Which in turn creates a moral reason for you to kill … etc, etc.
“Moral equivalency” to me, is nothing more than that; recognizing that everyone, in every conflict, thinks their moral reasons for killing make perfect sense, and the other side’s reasons are insane.
So terrorists are horrible, evil, people, and we’re noble defenders of all that is good, blah blah blah. That’s such an old song. Thinking your enemies are brutal killers isn’t morality — it’s simply animal instinct, that’s all.
Moral relativism is deciding that the only real place to stop the cycle is with ourselves. I know, it’s not nearly as satisfying as killing those who disagree with you. The opposite of moral relativism is deciding to kill everyone on the other side (gosh, where’ve we heard that lately). And that is satisfying, if you succeed. But that’s not morality, it’s animal brutality.
To which I, Cardinal Martini, in a show of both my infinite wisdom and unmatched intelligence, have responded,
Phil, I have no doubt that our enemies think they are correct and we are wrong. But so what? They’re still trying to kill us. I find there are two types of people on the other side; the reasonable ones, and the unreasonable ones.
We should try to reason with the reasonable ones. And we should kill the unreasonable ones, the ones who are so fanatical in their hatred for us that only force can stop them. Killing in self-defense isn’t “animal brutality”, as you put it. On the contrary, if we believe our way is better than theirs then it is both moral and logical to defend ourselves and our society from their attempts at destroying us.
You and I apparently understand the term “moral equivalence” to mean different things. As I understand it it means that neither side is right or wrong in a conflict. I just don’t think that is the case. That’s the stuff of the animal world. A bear in the forest is neither more or less moral than the fish he eats. But we are clearly different than both bears and fish.
We are creatures capable of higher thought. And we need to start acting like it. We need to evaluate complex situations such as the fight in which we find ourselves, and determine which side is morally right and which is not. It is the case that only one side’s culture will prevail from this fight, and I think it should be ours. I believe America is right and good — not necessarily that our government is correct in everything it does, mind you. I believe that American values are worth fighting for and protecting. I think the exact opposite of the cultures from which our enemies have sprung.
It is clear to me that only a morally confused person can argue that Iran’s culture — oppressive, intolerant, misogynistic, brutal — for example, is morally equivalent to ours and other Western countries — which are open, tolerant, and democratic.
Plus, killing badguys is always satisfying.
What do all of you people think? Do you agree with me? Or does Phil — who has my respect for leaving an actual comment, unlike certain trolls who shall not be named that lurk around the interweb — have a point? I dare one of you to leave another comment.
December 23rd, 2005 at 7:35 pm
The point of Munich is that when you set out to kill for moral reasons, you often end up creating a moral reason for someone else to kill. Which in turn creates a moral reason for you to kill … etc, etc.
“Moral equivalency” to me, is nothing more than that; recognizing that everyone, in every conflict, thinks their moral reasons for killing make perfect sense, and the other side’s reasons are insane.
So terrorists are horrible, evil, people, and we’re noble defenders of all that is good, blah blah blah. That’s such an old song. Thinking your enemies are brutal killers isn’t morality — it’s simply animal instinct, that’s all.
Moral relativism is deciding that the only real place to stop the cycle is with ourselves. I know, it’s not nearly as satisfying as killing those who disagree with you. The opposite of moral relativism is deciding to kill everyone on the other side (gosh, where’ve we heard that lately). And that is satisfying, if you succeed. But that’s not morality, it’s animal brutality.
December 23rd, 2005 at 8:10 pm
Are you SURE you don’t find it a bit satisfying? Or do you have some evidence that it is at all effective?
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:18 pm
Phil, I have no doubt that our enemies think they are correct and we are wrong. But so what? They’re still trying to kill us. I find there are two types of people on the other side; the reasonable ones, and the unreasonable ones.
We should try to reason with the reasonable ones. And we should kill the unreasonable ones, the ones who are so fanatical in their hatred for us that only force can stop them. Killing in self-defense isn’t “animal brutality”, as you put it. On the contrary, if we believe our way is better than theirs then it is both moral and logical to defend ourselves and our society from their attempts at destroying us.
You and I apparently understand the term “moral equivalence” to mean different things. As I understand it it means that neither side is right or wrong in a conflict. I just don’t think that is the case. That’s the stuff of the animal world. A bear in the forest is neither more or less moral than the fish he eats. But we are clearly different than both bears and fish.
We are creatures capable of higher thought. And we need to start acting like it. We need to evaluate complex situations such as the fight we now in, and determine which side is morally right and which is not. It is the case that only one side’s culture will prevail from this fight, and I think it should be ours. I believe America is right and good in this fight — not necessarily that our government is correct in everything it does, mind you. I believe that American values are worth fighting for and protecting. I think the exact opposite of the cultures from which our enemies have sprung.
It is clear to me that only a morally confused person can argue that Iran’s culture — oppressive, intolerant, misogynistic, brutal — for example, is morally equivalent to ours and other Western countries — which are open, tolerant, and democratic.
Plus, killing badguys is always satisfying.
December 24th, 2005 at 9:03 am
Phill, I am sure that you feel that your solution will work. Are there examples in history where “we” (the west and the US specifically) took the first step by not retaliating, or attempting conversation or discourse with those who seek to destroy u? Well yes. During the Carter administration, the President decided not to get involved when the Sha, too sick to continue, saw his power slipping away. France decided to fill the vacumm and backed the then exhiled Ayatholla Khomeni. The result was an out of control theocracy that has financially and logistically supported the vast majority of terrorist atacks in the world. When the Islamists took over our embassy in theran, Carter, once more, chose discourse instead of force. Our hostages remain in captivity until the muhllas, believing that Ronald Reagan would invade Iran to get the hostages back, decided to release them. Are there other examples? Well yes. In 1993 Al Quaeda’s sleeper agents detonated a truck bomb in the sub-basement of the World Trade center. Instead of agressivelly pursuing the overseas organizations and governements that financed and backed the attack, The Clinton administration decided to arrest and jail those members that could be found domestically while ignoring the leadership overseas. The result? The bombing of our embassies in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole, etc. Osama Bin Laden himself, named the weakness of the American Government as proof that America is a paper tiger without the stomach for a fight.
December 24th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
There either is absolute morality or there is not. If there is not, there is no such thing as “moral equivalence” either. There ain’t no right nor wrong, just things that be. Any argument that assumes no absolute morality exists has absolutely no moral force. How can one have a morality parable that means anything while denying morality?
(Today’s fashionable theory of moral relativism simply denies absolute morality. Replacing it with an argument that “anyone’s morality is perfectly acceptible” is to make everything moral, and hence nothing moral.)
So were left with arguing morality in a world with absolute morality. If you believe that the Palistinean terrorists who murdered innocent Israeli athletes in Munich did not behave immorally, then you’ll have a happy afterlife in hell. If you believe it is immoral to punish those who act immorally, again, have a happy afterlife in hell.
So, the only serious argument is whether Israel overreacted in imposing the death penalty upon those responsible for the murder of its innocent citizens. This is not a close call, either. Cass Sunstein has recently pointed out that if the death penalty deters more murders than any other available punishment for murderers, then it is immoral to allow innocents to die by not killing murderers. With Munich, did Isreal have any other realistic option other than to kill those responsible? Bring them up to the ICJ? Give them 20 year jail sentences, out in 10, after being tried in a German court (i.e., what just happened to an al Q’aeda terrorist who killed an American serviceman)?
Nonsense. Kill the bastards. It was a moral obligation for Israeli leaders to do so.
December 25th, 2005 at 2:41 am
The argument of Munich is that oppressing people’s desires for nationalism and land is at the root of Mid-East terrorism, if not all terror. It isn’t even about individual’s lives and the injustice they’ve suffered. Just satisfy or outgrow nationalist zealotry and there will be peace on earth.
Kun-bay-yah! Group hug! – problem solved.
Beyond being morally offensive, it isn’t even dramatically plausible. (Yes, I walked out of the film at 2 hours, 20 minutes, missing a puerile denoument – if it can be called this.)
One is much better off seeing the HBO original “Sword of Gideon” (1986) – “Munich” lifts several scenes from it verbatim – or else the documentary “One Day in September” (1986). The latter won an Oscar. As Aaron Klien’s new book “Striking Back” makes clear, Mossad policy of avenging terrorism worked to make the PLO abandon terrorism in the mid-70s as counter-productive – nothing you’d learn from silly trash like “Munich.”
December 26th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
Meanwhile Germany has released Mohammad Ali Hammadi, conficted of killing a US serviceman in a 1985 Beruit hijacking. They traded him for a German hostage in Iraq, who thinks her captors are really nice people and wants to go back. Her only complaint is that they had to kidnap a German because capturing Americans is too hard.