A response to Chris Hall

Blogspeak, the service I use for my blog comments, seems to be down so I'll reply to this in a full-fledged post.

Chris Hall writes in a comment on my "Keep off the Grass" post:

If a suicide bomber, say, gets on an airplane,
slashes the stewardesses throats, kills the pilots and flies the plane into a
building (just hypothetical, mind you), well, he's dead. so, would you say
\"Hello! You can't hunt them down. They're already dead.\" ? Or would you
recognize that that fellow is part of an organization, and then go after the
organization.

Well, both actually. The point of that post was not so much that invading Iraq was wrong (I think it was, but that's another story) as that it was done ineptly and is now spinning very badly out of control, and that I find George Bush's attempts to rationalize the situation comical.

there is ironclad proof of Saddam/terrorist connections

Really? Where?

What do you suggest?

Vote for Howard Dean.

Seriously though, I believe that the only long-term solution to terrorism is to create a world where no one wants to be a terrorist because everyone thinks they have more to lose than to gain by becoming one. Force can help a little in the short term, but is ultimately doomed to fail. Because of that, force must be used with great discretion, much like antibiotics. If used indiscriminatly both lose their effectiveness and ultimately make the situation worse.

Another thing that I suggest is to keep things in perspective. The destruction of 9/11, horrific as it was, is still just a blip in the grand and glorious scheme of things. More people die in car crashes every month than were killed in the WTC attacks, but no one bats an eye. It's a price we're willing to pay for the freedom that comes with being able to drive. I didn't suffer any personal loss on 9/11 so it's not my place to speak for those who did, but I've said this before and I'll say it again: if, God forbid, I am ever the victim of a terrorist attack I hope no one will use that as an excuse to wage war or restrict civil liberties. I hope instead that they will honor my memory by saying that I paid the price of freedom. It is a price that I would gladly pay.