The one point where I think Eli goes off the rails is assuming the response would be completely disproportionate. I agree with those who’ve said that the Afghanistan campaign was just about right (from the perspective of the government). Unfortunately, this even happened when the New American Century crowd was in power, and it gave them the opportunity to fulfill an agenda they’d had in place well beforehand.
But then the bundle of biases I tote around in my bandana-on-a-stick wouldn’t come up with “Never ever never for ever.” Sometimes the symbolic will be answered with the tangible. Were the electorate and those they give power clinical and intelligent enough to put a building and a hamlet-sized loss in perspective, they likely would not have had to ever worry about one/
And maybe suicide can be viewed as cowardly, but not many people are capable of slitting someone’s throat with a boxcutter. See a MR blog (and the linked book chapter): http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/11/violence-a-micr.html
The one point where I think Eli goes off the rails is assuming the response would be completely disproportionate. I agree with those who’ve said that the Afghanistan campaign was just about right (from the perspective of the government). Unfortunately, this even happened when the New American Century crowd was in power, and it gave them the opportunity to fulfill an agenda they’d had in place well beforehand.
But then the bundle of biases I tote around in my bandana-on-a-stick wouldn’t come up with “Never ever never for ever.” Sometimes the symbolic will be answered with the tangible. Were the electorate and those they give power clinical and intelligent enough to put a building and a hamlet-sized loss in perspective, they likely would not have had to ever worry about one/