TheAgitator.com
Risk, Security, and Liberty
Saturday, March 13th, 2004NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is making more and more sense these days. Trips to the developing world have helped him see the light on free trade, and why sweat shops are a necessary, if regrettable, stretch on the road to prosperity.
Today he strikes a blow for another libertarian theme — the need for sound, numbers-based risk assessment in public policy, instead of basing our laws on perceived risks, hype, symbolism, and message-sending. The Cliff’s Notes version of Kristof today:
Cars kill 43,000 people every year, or 117 per day. The flu kills 36,000 per year. Guns kill 26,000. Food-borne illness kills 5,000.
Excepting 2001, wanna know how many Americans terrorism kills every day? Almost zero. Much closer to zero than to one. Even if we isolate 2001 and the 3,000 people killed on September 11, the deadliest year for terrorism in U.S. history, that boils down to less than 10 deaths per day, or one tenth the number killed the same year in car accidents. Yet we’ve created the largest bureaucracy in the history of government, we’ve suspended the rules of criminal procedure, and we’ve launched what could amount to a trillion-dollar war — all in the name of fighting a threat that’s not even amont the top 20 killers of Americans.
Kristof unfortnately uses these numbers to suggest we need to spend more money on highway safety, AIDS resarch, gun control, and so on. I’d like to see us go the other way, and perhaps consider spending less on a huge bureaucracy that, if history is any indicator, isn’t going to do a whole lot to make us safer.
No, we shouldn’t forget September 11. Nor should we stop searching for, apprehending, and bringing justice to those who want to kill us. And Kristof’s right — the damage a one-time stray nuke could do is alone worth considerable vigilance and preventative effort.
But you might keep those numbers in mind the next time you hear an elected official or Bush apologist tell us we’ll need to sacrifice our money, our skepticism, and a bit of our civil liberties in the name of safety and security.
UPDATE:: I’ll respond at length later to the comments to this post. Short version: No, I don’t favor more spending on any of the items that pose a greater threat to us than terrorism. I’m just pointing out that we take risks every day without much thought that pose a far greater threat to us than terrorism. Yet we’re willing to support all sorts of measures of questionable value and that take away our freedoms in the name of the war on terror. I’m asking for a little perspective and propriety in how we fight terrorism, and that we not let fear rob us of our healthy skepticism for our political leaders.
More later.
This line of thinking is about the most simplistic logic I have heard in quite a while.
Conceptually we should use risk assesment in determining how we do things, much like cost benefit analysis is a viable way to determine things, but as the old addage goes, “garbage in…garbage out.”
Radley, the problem with your logic is that you only use one number, average deaths per year, to base your entire argument. In fact your premise is completely faulty because you assume that these numbers are straight line numbers that repeat from year to year. You neglect the fact that death by terrorism has a much higher variance from its average in any year, although you allude to it near the end, you just brush it off instead of making it a critical part of your analysis as need be.
Furthermore, you only use death as a calculation number. For starters, lets debunk your entire argument by stating that the economic loss from 9/11 is far greater than the economic loss of automobile deaths over at least a 10 year period if not more.
And what a bunch of crap at the end, telling us that we should not forget 9/11 and apprehend and bring to justice those who want to kill us, what the hell do you think our President is trying to do? Is your suggestion to remember it and send a couple of dozen guys out to the middle east to hunt down these savages. There are tens of thousands of them all over the world and taking the battle to them is the only way to stop them.
Radley, you have forgotten 9/11, you brush it off as only 3,000 deaths which is meaningless compared to those who die of the flu. Well how long are you going to go on about your two friends who died in the water taxi accident. It’s only two people for god sake.
There is a difference between traffic deaths and being killed by a terrorist on your own soil. The government was created to protect the people from things like this and that is what Bush is doing and Kerry won’t. For twenty years the democrats have been gutting our intelligence and military because they believe in the goodness of eveyrone else, they do not believe evil exists, and now they stand up and scream that our lack of intelligence is what the problem is. They are right and the republicans have been screaming about it for the last twenty years.
Unfortunately Jesus was wrong, the meek will not inherit the earth, they will continually be beaten up and abused by the bullies of this world. The reason is that they continue to think like you do, that we should not take the bullies seriously. Just like Chamberlain did with Hitler, until a real man like Churchill stepped in. The meek refuse to believe that evil is possible in such a great scale. The meek allow barbarious rulers to exist because they are too scared to stand up for their rights, they are too scared to fight the bully for their lunch money. The meek thought that Hitler would not try to conquer Europe if they sacrificed Checkosolakia to him.
The weak believe that suicidal killers of innocent people will not harm them if we just don’t provoke these fanatics.
What a shame that so many have died for this country so that our current population would become a bunch of cowards, afraid to stand up to defend themselves. If our founding fathers had thought this way we would never have fought for our independence.
Radley, you’re beginning to sound like the New York Times. I guess, using your numbers, you would have been against WWII also. How many American deaths will it take to convince you we are at war w/ those that want to kill us all. What would you have a sitting president do? More appeasement ?
Talk nice to the terrorist and they’ll go away? This is easily your weakest argument yet!
meek
I haven’t seen a thorough analysis, Peter, but I’d venture to guess that the economic impact of 43,000 deaths by automobile accident every year does, in fact, come close to the economic impact effected by the 3,000 deaths on September 11.
Bringing up my friend who died last weekend is cheap. The analogy would hold if I were calling for drastic federal regulations of water taxis, or banning water taxis, or some other such nonsense wholly out of line with the freak nature of the accident. Merely remembering someone on my website has nothing to do with calling for changes to public policy because of what happened, and you really make yourself look like an ass for bringing it up. No one’s saying we shouldn’t remember the victims of 9/11. Kristof’s calling for some perspective and reason in how far we go, how many wars we wage, and how much liberty we give up to avenge theor deaths. I happen to agree with him.
As for “taking the war to the terrorists,” all the usual arguments apply. Waging war in the Middle East in 1991 is what made us bin Laden’s enemy #1 in the first place. And why Iraq? If we’re going to take the war to the heart of Islamic fundamentalism, wouldn’t Saudi Arabia or Pakistan make a better target than a secular dictatorship?
Just like those investment commercials say:
“Past performance does not guarantee future results.”
Fact is, we don’t know how much is the “best least” amount we can spend to prevent another (or worse) occurrence of 9/11 magnitude. The objective is to call it somewhere between not enough and totalitarian overkill.
Name your system.
Radley, now you are talking shop. The reason for starting in Iraq and not Saudia Arabia or Pakistan is pretty simple. It was an easier target, as the world should have been on our side after 12 years of his ignoring the cease fire agreement of 1991. Of course since it is now coming out that there is $7 billion missing (stolen) from the oil for food program that was administered by the UN (France and Russia) we can maybe understand why those two countries were so much against the war. Plus, we have other potential options in these other countries. But don’t worry, when Bush wins again in November we will start to roll on to other countries. Syria is next, maybe Iran if we can not cause a revolution.
Your claim that we are Bin Laden’s enemy #1 because of the 1991 war is extremely miopic. So should we have stood around while a lunatic dictator with expansionist ideas attacked one of our allies? Might it be probably that when we did nothing about Kuwait that Saudi Arabia was next? Are you saying that we should not do what is right because some other lunatic will irrationally target us because we do the right thing? Sounds like we should not have declared war on Japan because then we would have fight Germany too.
I am truly sorry about your friends but the irrational nature of that point was to make a point. Death is death, it comes to all. How we react to it defines who we are and what kind of actions we take. Look how hard you took the accidental death of a collegue. My point was exactly that, we must put things in perspective.
Now lets take me for example, who worked in the WTC for two years and knew dozens of people who were murdered. If you react so emotionally to an accident how should I react to an intentional harm that killed a thousant times as many. Every citizen should take the death of 3000 Americans butchered by barbarians this hard.
Your contention that the automobile deaths is even close to 9/11 is rediculous. 10 million square feet of prime NYC office retail space. Hundreds of billions on clean up, lost work time, an entire section of the country’s most prosperous city shut down for years. Not to mention psychological trauma that touched 300 million Americans, which also causes an economic loss.
Yeah, we should remember the victims of 9/11, but I am not the ass for comparing them to your collegue who perished, I am just the one bringing you the sad truth. Maybe a plaque is sufficient to remember the victims of a water taxi accident but the only way to remember the victims of 9/11 is to do them justice, and that is to hunt down and kill every person responsible for it. If we allow this to happen again then we insult everything about those great Americans who involuntarily gave their lives for this country.
Or of course, we can just close our eyes, neglect foreign policy and it will all go away. Eight years of Clinton and all Americans cared about was how fat their wallets were. Eight years whose result were a recession brought about by his policies, corporate scandals conducted under his watch, a weakening of our defense and intelligence, and a man who govered over half a dozen terrorist incidents and did nothing, unless you count bombing a pharmacutical company in Sudan as a reaction. Hey, but who cares about right and wrong and morals, while Clinton was around our pockets were bulging so we did not have to care about foreign policy.
And now we have Kerry offering us the same solution. How sad!
One last thing, your idea of doing a cost benefit on this disproves your result.
We lost 6 Americans in 1993 when the WTC was bombed the first time, clearly since 6 Americans murdered in an act of war on our soil is an insignificant number we should not have done anything, which is what Clinton did.
However, since we did nothing in 1993 the result was 3,000 more dead in 2001. Neglecting the downside risk in your type of analysis is intellectually dishonest and weak.
Radley,
I don’t understand how having our goverment weigh the number of deaths per year that occur due to driving, aids, terrorism, guns and food borne illnesses and allocate funds accordingly is a step towards libertarianism?
4 of the 5 items on that list should have $0 dollars allocated to them by the federal goverment regardless of the numbers.
And Still More Numbers
While I’m on the subject of numbers, The Agitator has a great post about numbers: Cars kill 43,000 people every year, or 117 per day. The flu kills 36,000 per year. Guns kill 26,000. Food-borne illness kills 5,000. Excepting 2001,
Here’s an example that puts the real problem in perspective: Last week Congress held a big hearing to denounce steroid use in baseball. The White House is part of this as well, between the BALCO prosecution and the president’s strong statements on the subject. But consider that there are less than 900 active major-league baseball players. Even if you think drugs are bad and should be illegal, is it a rational use of federal resources to have the government target a small subset of the population over a non-violent crime? I vote for no.
Similarly, as Congress gave the Executive more law enforcement resources post-9/11, there continues to be a substanial misallocation of said resources. We spend more than a quarter-billion annually on antitrust prosecutions, for instance. None of those cases will do anything to keep America safer (unless you think paying too much for ice cream is akin to terrorism). You would think, given the White House’s emphasis on the “war on terror”, there would be an administrative push to make the best use of resources as possible. But there isn’t. Witness the Martha Stewart case. Again, you might think she had it coming. But realize the SEC was already investigating her–and still has a case pending–thus making the use of FBI and DOJ resources redudant and wasteful.
This is one of your most inane posts.
9-11 resulted in about a 20% drop in the stock market–which was a decrease of wealth-which prompted a decrease in spending–which further depressed the economy. Doubt if there were too many car accidents which had the same result.
Are you really asking the government to regulate cars to prevent accidents? If no car could exceed 45mph we would see a dramatic decrease in car deaths. Sounds like a great idea for a libertarian.
As a previous poster mentioned–6 deaths at the WTC in 91, 3000 in 01, are you willing to risk another a proportional increase in 2011? ( my math says about 1.5 million)
You also repeatedly refer to 9-11 as the worst failure of government–so government should do nothing to prevent another 9-11? Let’s hear some suggestions as to what you would do. It’s easy to find fault if you don’t have any responsibility. The 9-11 hijackers had committed NO crimes prior to 9-11. Are you willing to lock up every mid-eastener that does something our of the ordinary? I think not.
Let’s hear what we should do.
One other point-
2 of the 3 examples you use are accidental deaths as oppossed to a deliberate attack on our country. As for guns–I guess you favor a total ban on private ownership of guns?
Radley, this post has to be your most asinine to date. First of all, just because Kristof has seen the light in regards to factory work in developing countries does not mean he is leaning libertarian. Second, the “sound, numbers-based” risk assessment in public policy to which you refer is not and can not be based solely upon a single outcome measure (deaths per year). Rather, one additional major component is “benefit-cost analysis”. in this case, it’s how much money should be spent to prevent one of these preventable deaths.
Cars kill 117 people per day. Seatbelt use and not driving drunk would prevent many if not most of these deaths. These cost nothing other than the cost of education in schools and in ads. Flu kills 100 people per day (actually 200 per day during flu season). Most of these deaths would be prevented (or more accurately would result from another cause) if people received a flu vaccination. Again, this costs only the price of public education campaigns. Terrorists kill an unknown number of people per day, but the POTENTIAL death toll is at least 3000 per day, and many more if we continue to do nothing about them. To compare our government’s wasting tax dollars on regulations and other useless means of addressing preventable deaths from car accidents and smoking and obesity to fighting against fanatical Muslim extremists whose sole purpose in life is to murder Christians and Jews is completely ludicrous. And to apply numbers logic re: preventable deaths to combating terrorism is as idiotic as believing that creating more bureaucracy will somehow prevent deaths due to AIDS or make us safer from terrorists. Use some discretion for Pete’s sake.
I was about to write things very similar to what other people posted.
Radley, I think your logic is completely farked at both ends of the spectrum. In the most abstract sense, why should the government be spending money to reduce accidental deaths at all (if they are so accidental)? As a libertarian, you should believe that all people should be given equal latitude to fall in death traps left and right.
Your deaths-per-year metric is pretty stupid, too.
Thirdly, I have this sneaking suspicion that most people will die anyway. Given the choice, I’d rather go (relatively) painlessly in a violent accident than waste away to a poverty-stricken, withered old crodgy curmudgeon, sucking time and money out of the whole system to keep me a float to a pnemonia-induced death at 90.
Fourth, you haven’t seemed to have analyzed the costs, only potential benefits. Have you weighed the ultimate costs of remedies against each of the other things? Have you seen how stupidly much money the federal government spends on departments like transportation?
Fifth, one stray nuclear weapon has a tendency of not being something that we’d lightly shrug off. If such a thing were to happen to say, New York, Washington, Chicago, or Los Angeles, not only would probably a couple hundred of thousand people die within a few days, but one or more of the following things might happen:
1. Complete government meltdown. Anarchy, martial law, mass riots. Especially if it were Washington. Our military might fracture and who knows what steps might be taken at the highest levels. It is unlikely those factions would fight, but there would be uncertainty as to control and fractures might become territorial.
2. Massive National Guard deployment. If you thought the Patriot Act sucked, just hold on to your seat. The federal government will become infinitely powerful in days.
3. (Initially limited) Near immediate retaliation. If any one of Iran, Syria, Pakistan, or other hotbed countries were responsible, even remotely, there is no telling what level of response our military may take. We’d probably issue a completely ridiculous ultimatum immediately and whichever country was on the receiving end would probably put up a vain attempt to save face and not look like a guilty child, and flatly refuse. Then, anything from an immediate conventional deployment of long range bombers and fighters, invasion, to tactial warhead deployments via cruise missiles, to launching of strategic missiles from attack subs anywhere in the world. Of course, that would completely destabilize the region, put us at a state of total warfare, and Israel would be immediately attacked fiercely. Israel would likely respond with immediate nuclear strikes on concentrations of enemy troops.
I honestly do not see us turning the cheek if that were to happen.
Hell, if something even the scale of 9/11 happened again, I think that popular opinion would shift less towards fear and sorrow as it did after 9/11 but would shift to a vengefulness that only twice scarred innocence knows.
Guys, guys, you’re all missing Radley’s point. Radley is not arguing that the government should be devoting tons of money to car accidents, guns, and other dangers. The point is that we should keep things in perspective: terrorism is not the huge threat it is purported to be, just like school shootings are not the huge threat they are purported to be. When people realize that there are many other dangers in our lives much more serious than terrorism, and that most of these dangers are not worth getting hysterical over, people might become a bit less hysterical about terrorism. This is not to say that terrorism is nothing to worry about, nor should we stop caring about school shootings. Just don’t go completely nuts over it, ‘kay?
The point is that we should keep things in perspective: terrorism is not the huge threat it is purported to be…
Micha, that’s exactly what was said after the first WTC bomb.
There are people out there that would like to kill all of us and end the US. How we go about that will determine the future of this country. Jizzles was very right, one nuke detonated in a major metro will ruin more than a day. His scenarios are frightening but what do you think will happen?
Does anyone here honestly think that a terrorist org would not want to get there hands on a nuke and bring it to America?
The debate should be about the level of diligence needed to thwart terrorist attacks on our interest. Trying to put perspective on it using numbers like auto accidents and the flu is doltish. The analogy disregards the purpose of our Constitution and specifically national defense.
Don’t get me wrong the mere mention of the Federal Register gives me nausea, let alone the Patriot Act. That being said, I don’t give a rat’s ass about non-US citizen rights here or abroad. Setting a precedent of retaliation in Afghanistan was good, setting a precedent of offensive aggression in Iraq has its merits.
I can see both sides of the arguement. However, I tend to side with Radley on this based solely on the governments proven inability to do anything right.
A perfect example is this example I found on Fox News about the arbitrary power given to federal security directors at the airports. These few people are the judge and jury if you are caught trying to carry a “banned” item on a plane. It is their job to determine a person’s intent “according to the guidelines, which also allow directors to consider aggravating or mitigating factors, like whether the passenger tried to “artfully conceal” the item, or had interfered with the screening process.”
They can also consider the “attitude” of the passenger, whether he or she is a juvenile or an “inexperienced flier,” who may not have known better.
So I ask how will fining people and extracting penalties because of their attitude going to do to prevent terrorists? This is just one example, I’m sure there are plenty of other examples of arbitrary power being levied against people in the name of fighting terrorism.
We must also remember there is nothing particularly sophisticated about most modern terror attacks. I’ll be blunt: The WTC attacks could have been prevented if the passengers weren’t conditioned to act like trained sheep when a small band of terrorists took over the plane. People talk about the need to not forget 9/11. That should include the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania, where the passengers did take action. It didn’t save their lives, but it probably saved many more lives in D.C. All without government intervention.
That doesn’t mean there’s no role for the government. But there is a role for the people as well, and this administration does not understand that.
No Radley, Nicholas Kristof is not making more sense these days and neither are you. I can at least understand Kristof`s agenda, whats yours. The logic being applied by both you and Kristof is fatal and nothing less,,Kristof is pursuing an anti-Bush doctrineat any cost.What I`d like to know is, has your anti-Bush sentiments clouded your thinking or stripped you of your common sense? I have no stomach for the terrorists who have openly declared war on this country but they have openly stated and demonstrated their intentions toward our society, So now I ask you Radley, justhow much death, destruction and carnage will it take to bring you into the light of day?
I read somewhere (Cole, Universe and the Teacup?) that the human brain is unable to perceive mundane/ubiquitous risk–especially incremental risk, and only exotic, catastrophic risks get on our radar screen. Supposedly this is essential for evolution of the species. Basically, it’s why we’re afraid to fly, but not afraid to eat donuts. Ancient man would hunt wild, carnivorous animals with sticks, but shat themselves over thunder.
Okay, Manuel. So because 9/11 happened, we’re supposed to take everything our leaders say at face value, and never, ever question their decisions or ask whether the alleged safety we derive from them is worth their cost? We’re supposed shut up and take everything we’re told, do everything we’re asked, and never ask for an explanation?
Spare me the hysterics. I drove by the Pentagon every day on my way to work — for the first week after 9/11 while it was still smoldering. I live and work in the D.C. area. The odds of my dying in another terrorist attack are higher than most of the rest of the country. No, I haven’t forgotten 9/11, and no, I don’t underestimate the threat.
Who is saying anything about stomaching terrorists? I think we ought to kill them. But I also think we have an obligation to make sure that what our leaders are doing in the name of protecting us is worth the sacrifice, cost and loss of liberty they’re asking us to give them.
Not to mention that the money we’re spending and the wars we’re waging actually do diminish the risk, and don’t exacerbate it.
I think it’s strange why libertarians are so concerned with whether or not our military actions are exacerbating terrorism. When you show that you are willing to fight you discourage terrorists, which is exactly what’s happening in Iraq right now. When you cut and run at the first sign of danger you embolden terrorists. Bin Laden himself said he thought that America didn’t have the will to fight because of the way we responded to the first WTC attack, and how we pulled out of Somalia in 1993. You don’t increase aggression by demonstrating a willingness to use military might. That’s not the way the world works. You don’t get attacked because you are perceived to be too strong and too aggressive. You get attacked because you are perceived to be too soft and weak, which is exactly why we were attacked on 9/11. It’s pure cowardice to suggest that we shouldn’t engage in military action because we “might” encourage terrorism (this is what many libertarians think).
can someone, anyone, please explain to me exactly how you as an American has lost liberty(ies) due to the patriot act? this is a piece of legislation of utmost importance in combatting threats here on the homeland. indeed, if i were in office i would be pushing for a 21st century mccarthy-ism including racial profiling (as non-PC as it is) full throttle and gangbusters as it’s quite clear that islamic fundamentalists are the root of the problem regarding terrorism. the bad ones gotta go. as in sci-an-ara. so many ideas. so little power and influence. sigh. michelle
When one car accident kills 3,000 people and takes down a few buildings, I’ll consider it more worthy a spending cause then stopping those whose main goal in life is to kill people.
The fact that you would even consider “deaths by terrorism per year” a measure of the significance of the threat of terrorism is idiotic. Give them a nuclear bomb and a deployment system and see how your numbers change.
Argue about it all you want, but you have a better chance of surviving running across a 6 lane freeway than you do by being in the mere presence of one who wants to kill you.
Radley, no one’s challenging your (and my) right to question our government.
However, shouldn’t your (and my) pronouncements be held to the same standards of veracity and wisdom — and therefore be subject to an equivalent level of criticism, when called for — as those of this Administration (or any other) if we are to be taken seriously?
This is the mistake the loony Left makes — they define free speech as being immune to challenge. I don’t think you’re that far gone, but you are definitely leaning close to that cliff.
As I have said before, each of us has the right to say even idiotic things … but we also have the DUTY to declare them idiotic when the facts call for it.
From what I see, when we stop straining at the philosophical gnats, most of the Patriot Act is about letting our government catch up to the edge the bad guys presently have, due to their ability to leverage today’s technology, prosperity, and freedom of movement against laws and policies written for a slower-paced world.
We should be vigilant in our watch for abuse … but we should also accurately assess the risk of rendering legitimate protective activities impotent in our vigilance.
–
The reason many of us are “Bush apologists” is because there is only one other viable alternative for the forseeable future … and that “alternative” has already declared that (1)his view is that terrorism is a law-enforcement matter, and (2) good, bad, or indifferent, we will subordinate our judgment to that of the “international community”.
We tried the “terrorism-as-crime” apporach — and it kept the door wide open for 911. This isn’t about justice in the law-enforcement sense.
This is about war and survival … and precision-guided ruthlessness is called for, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks.
This includes making judgement calls about recurring problems like Saddam & Sons. One thing is for sure — those loose cannons will no longer be a factor in the War on Terror. Was it good judgment to continually rely on the leaky bucket of containment to hold them, when we were going to fight others of like mind in their backyard?
Radley I appreciate your response, 9/11 was a new experience to americans and so is our responseas a nation. Statistical data on prevention is always difficult to formulate but failure is very easy to identify. A successful terror attack on our society can be measured in two ways, body count and phsycological damage and both are equally important to the perpetrators. Just look at the horrific effect 9/11 had on our economy. As tragic as they may be deaths by cars,flu, guns etc,,, don`t have this effect on our lifestyle.
Radley,
Is this what libertarianism is all about? Government policy set by number of deaths per year? Hell Radley, we should just scrap the whole armed forces and spend all of our money on ant-smoking, pro-health, and AIDS research.
I must admit that you libertarians had me beliveing in your cause and almost becoming one but this post today has destroyed that.
One more thing Radley. As my 5 year old nephew told me one day a few weeks ago “sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do uncle mike”.
And that is just what we are doing in the middle east no matter what the cost.
Hell why should we care about nuclear proliferation. They should be household items.After all the number of deaths from the detonation of thermo-nuclear devices (if you through out Nagasaki and Hiroshima) is zero.
You know, regardless of who started this World War III, invading Muslim countries will spawn more terrorism than dealing with terrorism in a ‘covert way’, I think.
Just imagine how many Iraqis are lining up to join Bin Laden’s ‘construction’ company now. Catch Bin Laden, and some other freak will take over.
Invade Syria, Iran, Libya, and although state sponsorship of terrorism will decrease, the anti-US sentiment will only grow. Lessons learned from the war on drugs suggest that to ‘make & import’ chemicals and/or shady characters to employ them is trivial. So, again, how much safer will you feel when instead of a few million angry Muslims, you have, say a billion?
What if and angry mob of Muslims deposes Musharaf? Who gets his nukes?
Before you buy into invading one country after another, consider the long term consequences.
There is no trivial solution to this problem, but going down the path that only makes things worse, is a stupid utilization of limited resources.
Thank you Joker. You have just explained why we are in Iraq and why it must succeed. We are there for strategic military position in the region and to plant the seeds of democracy.
The only cure for muslim hatred of the United States is Freedom.
joker, what about the long term consequences of NOT going into countries that harbor and give comfort and aid to terrorists. suicide bombings? chemical hazards/mustard and nerve gas? contamination of natural resources? these are things that have happened abroad (except the latter), i don’t want to see those things happen here at home too. michelle
Joker — how many Iraqis are really lining up to join Al Quada?
A lot of the unrest there is perpetrated by foreigners who have come there to pursue the jihad against us.
And, are those Iraqis “in line” pursuing this with the best interests of the Iraqi people at heart — or are these the dead-enders who want to renew their bloodstained meal ticket, under another name?
The Arab street didn’t erupt after we took Iraq, despite the predictions to the contrary of those who share your viewpoint. The Arab peoples are human beings first — when you show them a way out of the brutality that has overtaken their culture, they will take it.
We can either act to deny the small minority of virulent Islamofascists the state resources that would make 911 look like a fender-bender … or do nothing, let them hijack those resources from ordinary Arabs, and feed their resolve with the perception of our weakness.
In fact, they can (and will) also gain more allies when their descriptions of us (as soft and decadent) are reinforced by our own passivity. I could be wrong, but I assert that this passivity will drive more Arabs to join the Islamofascists as “the winning team”, than will join them out of spite for resolute action on our part.
We persistently focus on OUR conduct, as if our actions and Al Quada’s are somehow morally equivalent. My question is, what right do these Islamofascists have to impose their will upon others?
Rich-
Hi
The Arab street did not erupt because they are becoming afraid of us. Not some nicey,nice humane traits. Look how they took to the streets cheering on 9/11 in Palestine…Either our media is being ’selective’ on the images shown to us or the Arab world figured out that the USA is serious unlike the Clinton years. My guess is the latter seeing as Syria told Uday and Qusay they were not welcome.
Michael, Michelle, Rich, I hope you are right and that the Muslims who become better off as a result of being invaded and ’set straight’, so to speak, will be grateful. But, these individuals do not worry me.
Don’t forget OBL is from Saudi Arabia - a relatively friendly nation towards the US with no serious offensive capability or crazed government (relatively speaking anyway). Yet, OBL, the psychopath, was born and raised there and it didn’t help his mind set at all.
My point is that regardless of their origin, a Muslim terrorist wannabe will find a way to blow you up if he wants to. Giving them freedom will do little to change their ways. These freaks must go extinct, and how do you do that?
- certainly not through appeasement or by rolling over to expose our soft underbelly, but by specifically targeting them like Israel seems to be doing lately. Invading entire nations only fuels the fire of their cause, provides justification (vendetta), opportunity, and costs a fortune. One has to be smart and efficient about it is all I’m saying.
If the Iraqi invasion becomes the ‘bitch-slap’ that puts the arab street back into normalcy and on the path to civility - great, I’ll be the first to praise it. If it doesn’t accomplish that goal, we might be faced with the Pakistan (in future, Iran) situation more often, where a nation secretly develops a nuclear deterrent capability, making itself immune from any ‘bitch-slapping’ and free to spread any kind of vile terrorism it wants.
There has to be a smarter way to deal with this.
Looks like a lot of fear mongering Bush lovers in here. I’ll have to remember to keep it simple so you can cross check with your RNC talking points.
No matter how tight security is. No matter how many civil liberties we are robbed of by Congress, if a terrorist is willing to give his own life to take the lives of others there is little that can be done to stop him.
Why piss our money down a bottomless pit. The region (Middle East) has been unstable for a thousand years or more. It will probably be unstable for a thousand years to come. Unless, of course you like the idea of long occupations under a foreign rule. (American Revolution, anybody? Bueller?)
It seems as though Peter and the like are the ones who have forgotten. Forgotten the reasons why we fought for independence.
Risk = probability of event occuring * potential loss.
There’s a serious problem with this analysis. It is this - you have to take into account the POTENTIAL magnitude of the threat, not just actual deaths. E.g. I work in IT security. I have to consider risk assessments on a daily basis. So, I have a datacenter. Chances of a tornado, etc. leveling the place are infintesimal, but not zero. So if I accepted the argument in the article, I would recommend no money spent on hotsites, backup, etc. After all, this has never happened so the stats for datacenters leveled (analogous to deaths per year stats) would be zero.
However, in reality, even though the chances of the loss are low the POTENTIAL consequences are so devestating (loss of data, equipment, etc.) that having recovery procedures is justifiable, even absolutely necessary. In fact, a corporation without backup/disaster recovery procedures would and should be hit with due diligence lawsuits from shareholders, etc. Many industries are required by law (banks, health care)to implement hot sites, backups, etc.
Terrorist attacks are a similar situation - the chance of a nuclear strike wiping out millions of people and sparking a war that could kill tens of millions more is admittedly small. But it is non-zero, especially if we do nothing about the threat. So, a “risk assessment” would justify, even demand, serious expensive measures be taken to mitigate this risk.
So risk is actually high, even though number of deaths per year appears to be low. Deaths per year also ignores the number of deaths that have been prevented by agressive action against terrorist organizations and states worldwide.
Terrorist attack = low to moderate probability * absolutely devestating consequences to all civilization =
v. high risk
Auto accident = high probability * very
small loss (on a nation wide scale) = low risk (again on the scale of a nation of hundreds of millions of people)
If we want to do an actual risk analysis, clearly terrorist attacks must have a very high priority compared to auto accidents and government priorities are in fact well placed using traditional risk analysis techniques. The idea that risk assessment would indicate otherwise is simply false and belies a serious lack of knowledge of statistics and risk analysis in general.
Joker–Yep OBL was from Saudi–I forget what country was Timothy McViegh from?
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