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christopherj 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.
All that means is that any terrorist who can do a memorable attack on the US and leave a trail leading to his target country, can effectively command the US to attack that country. And if it was the US they wanted to harm, they earn themselves countless recruits from that country.