Friday, October 01, 2004

Moral Calculus? How Bout Rational Calculus.

Apparently NPR recently interviewed one of the so-called "security moms." Marvin has a short post noting the moral hazards of the security mom's preference for Iraqi children to be blown up rather than her own children.

I didn't hear the NPR report, but I agree with Marvin's response regarding the shaky moral underpinnings of the security mom's argument.

But leave the moral argument aside for a moment. Can we please dispense with the ludicrous PRACTICAL underpinnings of this blatantly illogical argument? In what world are these people living that they believe fighting the terrorists "over there" somehow prevents the terrorists from acting "over here?" Do the people who subscribe to this notion believe that al Qaeda is like the Bush administration and therefore unable to walk and chew gum at the same time? Sure it's abundantly clear that George Bush can barely handle one task at a time. But it is equally clear that al Qaeda and its related organizations have no such limit on multi-pronged simultaneous operations. Ask the people of Beslan, Madrid, Pakistan, the Philippines, Afghanistan, Israel, and other far flung global targets of recent al Qaeda operations.

Ironically, even Bush does not believe his own spin. As he noted last night: "We're facing a group of folks who have such hatred in their heart, they'll strike anywhere, with any means." Of course he misunderstands their motives. But he nails their operational capabilities.

To be clear: Americans fighting and dying in Iraq hinder al Qaeda operations in North America not one iota. If and when al Qaeda decides to strike in America we must pray that America's domestic security and intelligence apparatus are equipped to thwart the attack.

Pretending that we've got al Qaeda bottled up in Iraq is not a recipe for security. It's delusional.