ESR's Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto

[Kutz]

X, leave and I eat your brains.

MaggieL, be so kind as to educate us on the constitution of your evolved moral compass.

It must lack exclusion of the double standard. There can be no other reason why you would be so quick to dismiss THEIR acts as pure evil and OUR acts as... misunderstandings, perhaps?

Both we and the terrorists have been in the wrong. Nobody is apologizing for them. Nobody wants to send them chocolates and cards of apology. Just as no terrorist is apologizing for US international policy.

And you're right, nobody can just stand around waiting to be attacked. But that isn't what's happening. We're provoking the attack. We continue to provoke the attack, and this knowledge comes as a direct result of studying their motives and beliefs. In such a manner, a change in foreign policy could help to avert further terrorist acts and perhaps save many, many lives.

It's important not to consider the situation in terrible extremes. We are right to try and defend ourselves by preventing further terrorist attacks - but that doesn't necessarily mean fighting back with guns and tanks and smart bombs.

So, is it appeasement, then? No. Appeasement means that we allow a direct plan of aggression. Letting Iraq invade Poland would be appeasement. Letting the Al Qaeda make a few more attacks to avoid trouble would be appeasement. Checking US policy to avoid offending the sovereign rights of others is not appeasement, it's diplomacy.

I'm not saying you're wrong to want to defend yourself, or to be angry at the terrorists who comitted these acts, or to want to fight back. More important than "fighting is wrong" - which is fairly hard to verify - is "fighting sucks." So we have to avoid it when possible. And in this case, avoiding it would probably lend us to the superior alternative.