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JoshuaZ comments on When None Dare Urge Restraint - Less Wrong
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Despite your post being entirely correct, if for a moment we ignore the welfare of humanity and consider the welfare of the United States alone, there is a good chance that this irrational overreaction will be remembered, and that it will serve as deterrence to any aspiring attackers for a hundred years to come.
Sometimes irrational wrath pays, especially if you can inflict pain much more effectively than you need to endure it.
The cost to humanity is probably dominated by some 1,000,000 deaths in Iraq, but the cost to the U.S. at least in terms of deaths is comparatively smaller. The Iraq deaths are an externality.
On the contrary, this now teaches someone that if they want to do damage to the United States they can easily get it to engage in an autoimmune disorder along with a few oversea adventures.
Moreover, this isn't the only example. Look at how one of the most successful post 9/11 attacks terrorist in the last few years was by many metrics Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. In terms of lost time and productivity in responding to his unimpressive attempt, literally millions of people every day need to take off their shoes, run them through already busy x-ray machines, and then put them back on.