I still have that I must be missing something feeling about that one. It seems so obvious that terrorism is very low down on the chart of public health problems, and that little would do more to defeat their aims than treating it as such; but when someone like Hitchens takes it seriously, I really want to know if there’s an argument I haven’t considered.
One of my smarter friends supports the War on Terror. His rationale, which I find at least worth consideration, is that left alone, there’s a decent chance terrorists will steal a nuclear weapon from Pakistan or the former USSR or somewhere and nuke a major city. Considering how much damage that could do, and how not-really-unlikely this is, the expected damage really is greater than that from a lot of other problems. Although we should be putting extra resources into fighting this specific problem (like securing nukes better) a large part of the strategy has to be an all-out war on terror.
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think the war on Iraq is very helpful, but he thinks that wiretaps, detention camps, the war in Afghanistan, and vastly increased border security are all part of this effort.
The biggest issue with the “War on Terror” is that it involves a lot of hazy handwaving, amibguous goals, and very little practical evaluation of what gets results—i.e., it shows all the signs of being a political power grab masquerading as the solution to a (potentially real) problem.
You’re probably already familiar with him, but Bruce Schneier has written at some length about ill-considered counterterrorism efforts on his blog.
The security theater embodied in most of the TSA’s budget, and the violence it does to civil rights of travelers is directly opposed to vastly increased border security. The money and attention that goes to frisking nuns distracts from the possibility of developing border security that actually works.
I’m not convinced that vastly increased border security or wiretaps or detention camps are actually valuable tools in combating a merely plausible (to me) threat from terrorists, but it’s clear that the actual spending is making the situation worse, not better.
I still have that I must be missing something feeling about that one. It seems so obvious that terrorism is very low down on the chart of public health problems, and that little would do more to defeat their aims than treating it as such; but when someone like Hitchens takes it seriously, I really want to know if there’s an argument I haven’t considered.
One of my smarter friends supports the War on Terror. His rationale, which I find at least worth consideration, is that left alone, there’s a decent chance terrorists will steal a nuclear weapon from Pakistan or the former USSR or somewhere and nuke a major city. Considering how much damage that could do, and how not-really-unlikely this is, the expected damage really is greater than that from a lot of other problems. Although we should be putting extra resources into fighting this specific problem (like securing nukes better) a large part of the strategy has to be an all-out war on terror.
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think the war on Iraq is very helpful, but he thinks that wiretaps, detention camps, the war in Afghanistan, and vastly increased border security are all part of this effort.
The biggest issue with the “War on Terror” is that it involves a lot of hazy handwaving, amibguous goals, and very little practical evaluation of what gets results—i.e., it shows all the signs of being a political power grab masquerading as the solution to a (potentially real) problem.
You’re probably already familiar with him, but Bruce Schneier has written at some length about ill-considered counterterrorism efforts on his blog.
The security theater embodied in most of the TSA’s budget, and the violence it does to civil rights of travelers is directly opposed to vastly increased border security. The money and attention that goes to frisking nuns distracts from the possibility of developing border security that actually works.
I’m not convinced that vastly increased border security or wiretaps or detention camps are actually valuable tools in combating a merely plausible (to me) threat from terrorists, but it’s clear that the actual spending is making the situation worse, not better.