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Read other letters about this article
Bernard Henri-Levy makes an interesting contradiction in his interview.
He initially says that "No one has the right to take the life of another. No crime, no feeling of revenge, justifies that."
But later he seems to embrace the concept of "spreading democracy," saying that we "do have a dog in this fight."
While I understand that spreading democracy is a very noble idea in the abstract, imposing it forcefully on another country inevitably leads to collateral damage in human lives. Henri-Levy seems to believe that one man dying on death row is a moral abomination, but he glosses over the 10,000 or so that have died in Iraq in our attempt to "spread democracy."
If Levy knows a way to practically bring democracy to undemocratic countries through means other than military force and its resultant loss of innocent life, he didn't mention it in his interview, and as such his condescending attitude towards those that he would describe as "isolationist" rings a bit hollow. I'm not isolationist, I just don't think people should be involuntarily called upon to die for someone else's noble idea.
