On Sat, 3 Nov 2001, Gar Lipow wrote:
> You are right (skipping ahead) that my main target is the curret
> bombing campaign. The reason this came up is that Max S. argued that a
> measure of success of the U.S. current campaign is whether anti-U.S.
> attacks on a 9/11 scale occur again. The main moral and practical
> argumenets against this have been made by many people, so I did not
> repeat them. But there was one minor point that had been overlooked -
> that an attack on a 9/11 or even one sixth of a 9/11 attack is
> unlikely due to capability. In short -- I was simply showing an
> argumeent as invalid in its own termes, as opposed to showing it wrong
> in a larger sense.
To be fair to Max, I don't think he originally put forth his wager as a justification of US policy, but rather as a critique of a critique of US policy, namely the oft-made assertion that what we're doing in Afghanistan will increase chances of terrorism against the US. And there's something to be said for it in that regard. I personally am one of those who strongly believe that what we're presently doing in Afghanistan can only can only make our homeland security situation worse, and can't make it better. But for the very reasons you point out, it's a hard if not impossible case to make on the evidence in the short to medium term. It's more a matter of worldview. Max's wager as I saw it was an attempt to point that out in a reductio ad absurdam way. And make a couple of bucks while he was at it :o)
Agreeing with much of the reasoning in your last few posts, and following the path of Liebling's _Honest Rainmaker_, I'm willing to bet that fewer people will die of as a result of Islamic-hued terrorism inside the continental US in the next 10 years than will be struck by lightening.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com