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denis_bider comments on When None Dare Urge Restraint - Less Wrong
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Comments (118)
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.
As a non-US citizen, I can state that the irrational over-reaction was exactly the response that the terrorists were aiming for. Lots of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - lots of panic and mindless reaction... it has also greatly debilitated the effectiveness (and no doubt the profitability) of the entire world's air-transport system, without actually enhancing security thereby.
There is no deterrent here
IMO this would not in any way discourage future attackers - but encourage them.
I concur. Terrorists. Want terror. Got terror.
I remember when I heard "They hate us for our freedom" I immediately thought, "Don't worry, soon we'll have much less of those". Turns out they still hate us, probably for bombing their country and replacing their democracy with dictatorships in the name of democracy.
If Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not have that effect...
As a non-US citizen, I estimate that the net effect for the US is quite negative, even internally as you put it, for the reason of other people and nations seeing the US in a negative light. Most of US commerce is international after all.
Also I don't see how the viewpoint of ignoring-the-humanitarian-and-welfare-cost-of-everyone-not-in-the-US is in any way an interesting one; Either people suffer and die, or they don't, their physical location and country of birth don't really change anything.
[Edit: Spelling]
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.
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.