well, since that wasn’t remotely what was said by the OP, maybe you should look inside yourself as to why you are so eager to assign blame.

There have been other approaches to humanize the complexities of violence. In 2005, a group of photographers landed in conflict-ridden Israel and Palestine and put up giant posters, close-ups, of Palestinians and Israelis, of all shades and expressions, side by side. What the posters didn’t do was identify the Palestinian and the Israeli; one had to guess: http://face2faceproject.com/. The point was made.

I think the ordinariness Rockwell strives for, to make better sense or no sense of the mayhem of terrorists, is better captured in Emmanuel Guibert’s and Didier Lefevre’s graphic work, “The Photographer.” Guibert’s etchings and Lefevre’s photographs don’t pretend to understand the complexities of a dirty war or its participants, but to be fair, this was before the War on Terror rhetoric. And it is a different kind of war. Yet in the drawings and the landscape, war’s dominance, its craziness, is evident. As a reader, you are drawn in, and you stay there, in that hole. When you come out, you don’t know what to do.

I reacted similarly to “Restrepo,” Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger’s documentary about the Battle Company’s turbulent 14-month deployment in an outpost in Afghanistan’s Korangal Valley. The film makers wanted to make a film about the daily perils of an ordinary American soldier. In the backdrop are ordinary Afghans; the film, Hetherington confessed at the Q & A, wasn’t about them. Yet one of the film’s strongest scenes involve this Afghan family who are ushered out of their home, victims of a bombing by military aircraft. They, children among them, troop out terrified. There has been collateral damage; an infant is covered in shrapnel. And with a straight face, albeit apologetic, a military commander tells the villagers such mistakes may reoccur if they continue to shelter the Taliban. At that point, for me, the bad guys and the good guys sat in a pool of gray.

Yeah, we get it, enough already. Its our fault.

I don’t find this to be redeeming. Thank God this cat had his mother to protect her! This to me shows another serious flaw in this guy. A real animal lover would want to make sure their pets are safe and well taken care of if they are not able. He wasn’t going to Disneyland, he was going to SOMALIA to join a terrorist group. That is a violent life he chose. He was selfish, thinking of his own wants. He wanted his cat to be with him in his chosen violent life path because it pleased him, not that it was best for his cat. That isn’t love shown to this cat. That is about what the cat can do for him. This is not good for the cat. He showed poor judgment in this and recklessness and selfishness. No animal shelter who cares for the well being of the animals that they hope to place in a stable home would accept this guy as a someone whom they would allow to adopt their animals.

So instead of showing him with Tuna Princess on his bed, the artist should have shown him in Somalia with the terrorists with his cat. That is the real care and concern he feels for the cat. His mother should have been alone on the bed with the cat instead.

war on terrorism is a good example of how fungible the line of judicial constraint or legality can be and the kinds of acts which the “civilized” will resort to when they dehumanize the other. and use apocalyptic rhetoric to excuse various acts.

Here are the nine rasas, or “pure emotion” which I thought was pretty interesting because emotion is usually anything but.

Love (Shrinagara) Joy (Hasya) Wonder (Adbhuta) Peace (Shanta) Anger (Raudra) Courage (Veera) Sadness (Karuna) Fear (Bhayanaka) Disgust (Vibhatsa)

There’s a couple interesting ones in there. Like, I never really of “peace” or “courage” as an emotion.

Amitava - Just an aside, because I don’t want to go too far off topic. There have been plenty of instances of violence that have not lead to further violence. Consider World War II or the war on terrorism. Fighting monsters does not automatically damn us to become like them. Maybe you weren’t setting up the dichotomy of fight vs. non-violence (but it seems like it) but the real challenge here is to fight with judicial constraint.