The comments on that article don't seem to responding to anything in the article itself. Many are just ad hominem followed by a strongly stated opinion. From what I can tell the Plain Dealer is a relatively liberal newspaper, but the comments don't seem to reflect that.
Anyways, probabilistic thinking has become a reverse dogwhistle for me and I think part of your argument illustrates why:
For instance, consider what happens when Muslim media report an airstrike by Western forces that kills civilians. At any point, myriad Muslim youths are angry at the Western intervention into Syria. For a number of them — say, 100 — the report will be the thing that tips them over from anger to outrage, and they will decide to join ISIS.
Let's say 5 percent get trained in ISIS camps as suicide bombers. That means five new suicide bombers per report of an airstrike killing civilians, ready to wreak havoc on the United States or other Western countries.
Why did you choose those numbers? Do you have any inside knowledge as to why people join ISIS? And why would 100 new ISIS members lead to any increase in the number of suicide bombings? I doubt that the decision of ISIS to cause a suicide bombing is constrained by the number of members, or willing members. And are you sure that the only effect that more aggressive interventions can have is to increase the number of willing suicide bombers? Even granting that aggressive measures do push people over the edge into joining ISIS, what if they also scare some people out of joining ISIS? What if they kill more ISIS members than the create?
We can make up numbers but that isn't particularly productive, because the math isn't the hard part - it isn't where most of the uncertainty is.
Actually, I would love it if politicians and analysts used actual numbers. Then, we can check the accuracy of their forecasts. The hard part is getting them pinned down on some numbers. If we can get numeracy and probabilistic thinking into the political system, it seems that we would be much better off as it would allow us to gather real data. What do you think?
Here's my op-ed that uses long-term orientation, probabilistic thinking, numeracy, consider the alternative, reaching our actual goals, avoiding intuitive emotional reactions and attention bias, and other rationality techniques to suggest more rational responses to the Paris attacks and the ISIS threat. It's published in the Sunday edition of The Plain Dealer, a major newspaper (16th in the US). This is part of my broader project, Intentional Insights, of conveying rational thinking, including about politics, to a broad audience to raise the sanity waterline.