W. H. Auden Quotes

This proverb only makes sense in the light of understanding the Arab concept of revenge—“blood.” In a rural desert environment where little can be expected of government, the Arabs have developed a law enforcement and peace keeping mechanism which while primitive from modern standards, nevertheless worked to some degree. It is that revenge—“blood” is a moral necessity and obligation of all people, and revenge is not limited by time or to the individuals involved in the first incidence. The immediate family are the first to extract revenge, but the extended family follows and often the entire clan. Sometimes revenge is tribal or even national. Anyone who fails to revenge a member in his group is not only a disgrace, but is a clear and present danger to the group because then they can be attacked with impunity. So revenge is a strong obligation of the group members and blood must be paid with blood no matter how many generations it may take. The only thing that keeps me and my family safe, is the surety what whosoever kills one of us will themselves be killed or if they die a natural death we will take revenge on one of the evildoers relatives. Crime must never pay!

Mandelstam was later sent to a Soviet gulag for writing a poem denouncing Stalin. He died there.

Nathaniel Bacon had led a rebellion in Virginia and had routed the Governor’s troops and caused him to flee leaving control of Virginia to Bacon and his followers who were far more democratic and advanced. However Bacon succumbed to swamp fever, and his followers could not hold the colony together giving the Governor a chance to establish his authority. He then went on a vengeful reign of terror, executing all of Bacon’s followers he could get his hands on. With no danger to the authority of the Crown, King Charles felt that Berkeley had gone too far. The King’s father Charles I had been executed in the aftermath of the English Civil War, but he had executed far fewer than Berkely had done in Virginia.

Her view was only held by a few British citizens. Capital Punishment was ended in Britain.

A number of the American soldiers refused to obey Calley's illegal order. Some helped some villagers to escape, and a helicopter pilot landed betreen Callery's men and the villagers they were shooting at, and ordered his helicopter machine gun crew to fire on the soldiers if they did back off. The soldiers stopped firing at the civillians. However, his and other reports of the massacre were covered up by the military for a few years. Mai Lai was not the only major war crime perpetrated by Americans in the Vietnam War; there had been a few others. But given the years of fighting and the many opportunities war crimes violations under orders were quite rare. The Viet Cong had many more war crimes that they perpetrated, and our South Vietnamese allies repeatedly committed war crimes against their own people.

Johnson was Vice President at the time. What he did not realize at the time was that one of the plotters was supposed to have killed him at the same time as the others, but the assassin got cold feet at the last minute and never entered Johnson’s house.

This sura on retaliation for murder is behind the Saudi Arabian law which allows the male relative of a murder victim to personally wield the sword in the beheading of the murderer.