Eric Lee writes for Workers Liberty:
Mass murderers, and especially those who execute children at point-blank range, are not normally objects of one’s sympathy. It is possible, I imagine, for Nazis to “understand” the motives of a mass murderer, especially one who targets Jews. But one hardly expects the same sort of understanding or sympathy on the left.
And yet this is precisely what we find in the latest issue of Socialist Worker.
In a full-page article following up on the Toulouse killings, Jim Wolfreys mentions in the second paragraph that Mohamed Merah’s first attacks took place on the very same day as an American soldier, Robert Bales, went on the rampage in Afghanistan.
One’s first reaction is to think — that’s a quick response by Merah to an attack on his fellow Muslims. But it wasn’t, and that’s not Wolfreys’ point at all.
His point is that “the media tried to comprehend what Bales did by reference to a breakdown brought on by injuries and trauma.”Now that’s not strictly speaking true.
What most of us saw in the media was shock and horror at what Robert Bales did.
The only attempt to “comprehend” his actions in this way came from his lawyer.
Everyone else, including his Commander in Chief, condemned what Bales did without hesitation.“Few have tried to do the same in the case of Mohamed Merah,” writes Socialist Worker.
In other words, according to the SWP, Merah needs an advocate.
He needs someone to explain what motivated him to brutally murder unarmed civilians, to deliberately target Jewish children, as well as to execute French soldiers.
