Violence begets Violence?
I found this post on a blog called everythingiknowiswrong.com... this guy thought he had a good counterpoint to the violence begets violence argument that those "lefties" always use.
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Violence begets violence?
James Taranto has this brilliant insight regarding those who offer up the "violence begets violence" excuse for terrorist atrocities.
This rhetoric about "cycles" appears to reflect a theory of moral equivalence, but in fact it is something else. After all, if the two sides were morally equivalent, one could apply this reasoning in reverse--excusing, for example, the alleged massacre at Haditha on the ground that it was "provoked" by a bombing that killed a U.S. serviceman--and hey, violence begets violence.
But America's critics never make this argument, and its defenders seldom do. That is because it is understood that America knows better. If it is true that U.S. Marines murdered civilians in cold blood at Haditha, the other side's brutality does not excuse it. Only the enemy's evil acts are thought to be explained away by ours.
Implicit in the "cycle" theory, then, is the premise that the enemy is innocent--not in the sense of having done nothing wrong, but in the sense of not knowing any better. The enemy lacks the knowledge of good and evil--or, to put it in theological terms, he is free of original sin.
Blaming America for the violence done to it is like blaming a rape victim of having brought it upon herself.
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The violence begets violence argument first of all is not made in order to "excuse" any person's actions. No one is innocent when killing is involved. If it wasn't for this cycle of violence, there wouldn't be a war, there wouldn't be an insurgency. When us liberals talk about the "cycle of violence", were not talking about specific parties of people, or for that matter, the United States and international terrorists. We're talking about something that's much bigger and broader. We're talking about the history of violence and warfare. As long as there is disputes between groups of people, plenty of weapons on hand, and the overriding notion (especially here in the U.S.) that might is right and that war can always be somehow justified, there will be violence.
It's that hypocritical pro-war + pro-life mentality that really drives me crazy. How can you be one and the other simultaneously? If you are a Christian, you are saying that FORGIVENESS is God's greatest gift. Yet still, many Christians in the U.S. today work hard to promote a justice system that throws everyone and their mom in jail, the death penalty, and worst of all, war.
And where is the "moral equivalency" measuring stick? Do you mean the values of your religion as opposed to theirs?
People resort to violence for reasons that they think justify their horrible act. The main issue in the violence begets violence argument is: "Who started it?"
When terrorists attacked us on 9/11, they felt as if they were doing the right thing. They thought that the United States had become too powerful and had been bullying and stealing the resources of the Middle-East for too long. No matter how completely and utterly twisted and evil this act was, terrorists saw it as justifiable because of America's aggressive economic foreign policy and need for oil.
So where do you draw the line? Who started it? Well, that depends on who you ask... it's all about perception, and reality really doesn't factor into situations that involve an almost infinite number of different viewpoints and opinions.
Al Qaeda punched us in the eye, but we'd been poking them with a stick for a while. Now, don't get mad at me... I'm not on the side of the terrorists, but I see fundamentalism and extremism everywhere I look, not just in the Middle-East. I can sort of see how an uneducated, impoverished, and vengeful kid in Iraq might be easily brainwashed into thinking that killing Americans is okay. Kind of like how Marines sometimes lose their minds and start shooting everything that moves because they're wearing 50 pounds of equipment in 120 degree heat, and don't have a clue who the enemy is.
War is the worst of all human experiences. It promotes mindless acts of violence from both sides of the conflict. Blood and guts, blown off arms, pieces of skull, babies full of lead, heads exploding, bombs dropping, decapitation, raping, torturing and pillaging. THIS is the reality of WAR.
We as American's do know better. We have free speech in this country, and I, along with millions of other American's are standing up and saying, "This war does not reflect the values of ordinary Americans".
In the end, why does it really matter who started it? Why do we need to constantly seek revenge for horrible acts of violence? What does it accomplish? Does it bring the dead back to life? Does it make us any safer?
I will not post any pictures of what war looks like on this page, although I should. If I don't, I'd be a hypocrit, but if I do, people will think I'm sick. The rest of the world sees these images and it takes a toll on their overall opinion of the war that we started on false premises.
"This is a war the Bush administration does not want Americans to see. From the beginning, the U.S. government has attempted to censor information about the Iraq war, prohibiting photographs of the coffins of U.S. troops returning home and refusing as a matter of policy to keep track of the number of Iraqis who have been killed. President Bush has yet to attend a single funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq." -Salon.com
REALITY OF WAR: afterdowningstreet.org
posted by Matt @ 5:31 PM
15 comments
15 Comments:
Al Qaeda punched us in the eye, but we'd been poking them with a stick for a while.
...How so? Oh yeah, the USS Cole, the original world trade bombings, the embassies...all us messing with them eh?
Kind of like how Marines sometimes lose their minds and start shooting everything that moves because they're wearing 50 pounds of equipment in 120 degree heat, and don't have a clue who the enemy is.
You mean when Marines "allegedly" do this sort of thing. The Marines I know do not do this sort of thing. And it still isn't equivalent; if our boys do things like that, we condemn it...it is unacceptable. They draw murals of the towers in flames and cheer at our deaths.
The problem with your allegation here is that you wrongly assume that if we leave these people alone, they'll reciprocate. It isn't about violence begetting violence -- its about violence begetting death. This isn't an honorable conflict; this isn't a duel, or a jousting match or something where we can say "Oh, time out...I don't want to do this any more." Either we take the fight to them, or they bring it to us. Anyone who fails to see that is foolishly blinding themselves to the reality that was 9/11, 7/7, and countless international attacks prior to those.
You say we got bombed because we had aggressive economic policies and messed with the middle east. Why did Spain get bombed? Or Egypt (7/24)? Or any one of the literally hundreds of bombings in the Pacific Rim? Further more, even if that was the reason, how is that any sort of justification? Especially coming from someone who touts a belief in the Just War theory? Would it be my fault if you found and killed my family for my comments I posted here? If not, why is it acceptable for them to return peace with blood?
What is Salon.org and how do they know anything about censorship? Give me a break, this is the most open war ever fought, EVER. You want to learn about censorship, you should go read what kind of provisions FDR had on the media during WWII.
That is nothing but anti-Bush vitriol and has no place in the rest of your comments, other than to highlight the real reason the American left is against the war -- because being against the war goes hand in hand with being against Bush.
ah! i can't look away two seconds without having k2aggie07 get the last word in on everything! i'm about to go for a bikeride... i suggest you get out and do the same.
Muahhaha, its my evil Zionist libertarian powers showing through. That, and I get bored at work sometimes.
Alright, i'm back. Ready to go to bed but I thought I needed to do some clarifying first and defend my statements that have been once again dissected by my pal matt. I feel like i'm bill o'reilly and you're keith olbermann... but it really should be the other way around. you don't have a blog do you? if you did you probably wouldn't tell me.
first of all, just because i try to explain the motives of a terrorist doesn't make me his defender. i suppose i'm unpatriotic if i try to understand why another human being like me could ever bring himself to do such a disgustingly horrible act.
no one is justifying anything here, i'm merely trying to look at the situation from BOTH SIDES, regardless of who may be right or wrong. i'm not talking to terrorists on my blog, i'm talking to americans. if i were talking to terrorists, i would be trying to make them aware of how and why we did what we did. i said they were evil and twisted, isn't that enough?
you also assume that i mean the incident in Haditha when i say that marines shoot at anything that moves. there have been countless instances in which innocents have been caught in the line of fire. google it. haditha got international attention only because it involved so many women and children, allegedly of course.
"Most people died from violence after the invasion, the survey said, with most of the households interviewed saying air strikes from coalition forces were to blame." -- http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/29/iraq.deaths/
this is a non-governmental study that went from household to household in iraq recording the deaths and causes of deaths of family members.
"Even with a 1.5-times increase in deaths since the invasion, the number of deaths would be more than 98,000, although this estimate would be much greater if Falluja data is included, the study showed."
now i know you're going to say that the study is unreliable and that there isn't "sufficient evidence" to support it. i agree... and obviously the majority were probably killed by suicide bombers. but let me ask you something.
What if it were true?
Would it bother you that almost 100,000 people have died because of a war that congress and the american people were scared shitless into? How about 50,000... or even the conservative estimate which is nowhere beneath 35,000 iraqis?
i just don't see the point!
we invaded without being provoked. there was no connection between iraq and niger when it came to uranium. we found no wmd's that would have been any danger to any american lives. the supposed connection between saddam hussein and al qaeda was little to nothing.
al qaeda members met with iranian officials that helped them plot out 9/11.
-here: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,664967,00.html
-here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5457389/site/newsweek/
-and here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6581-2004Jun25.html
why didn't we invade them?
saddam was a brutal dictator and oppressor of his own people, no doubt about it. he was also an oppressor of renegade organizations like terrorist groups.
now, i don't know about you but when i see 35,000 i see a BIG number.
basically what your argument boils down to is the favorite conservative talking point, "we've gotta fight them over there, so that they don't fight us over here". i'm not an idiot, i can see your argument clear as day. i just don't agree with it.
i was scared shitless after 9/11 just like everybody else. now i can't help but be even more terrified for american lives. i live by the mall of america... that name alone sounds like something that might attract the attention of terrorists.
once again, we've reached a point in the debate where it is impossible to reach an agreement and step across the fine line that's been drawn between the left and the right when it comes to the war in iraq (which is actually an occupation).
i think the iraq war has completely and utterly damaged our reputation as a beacon of hope in the world. i have never thought (even before bush took office) that pre-emptive war was a good idea under any circumstances unless it involved a peace keeping effort. being against the war doesn't go hand in hand with hating bush. being against the war goes hand in hand with being a liberal.
like you said before, you deal with cold hard facts, and i deal with ideas (a very exaggerated statement). i look at that number up there, and i think about what kind of effect that might have on fundamentalist groups in the rest of the world that want our blood spilled.
terrorist organizations have sprouted up all over the world and recruiting for al qaeda never seems to die out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/05/AR2006070501634_pf.html
---- look at this article. everything in the world seems to be going a little screwy lately. on top of that, world opinion of the united states is horrible mainly because of the iraq war.
you conservatives just turn your backs to the rest of the world. republicans have shown time and time again that they don't care what the rest of the world thinks of us.
this is a mess. and if you can't see it.... well you must be an "evil zionist libertarian" afterall. (its a joke, please don't take it out of context)
now i don't know much about the egypt bombing, but i do know about the bombing in spain. one of my freinds owns a book on terrorism that translated one of osama bin laden's letters to his followers in which he went into precise detail on how his organization was going to drain the economy of the united states, much like his militant efforts against the soviet union.
his plan was to attack the countries that cooperated with the U.S. effort in order to create public discontent and the eventual withdrawl of that country's troops out of iraq. his theory was that if enough of these countries were convinced to step out of the fight, the U.S. military and the american people would have to shoulder the rest of the cost in lives and in taxes. these people aren't just ruthless killers, they're ruthless evil killers that know what they're doing.
read this: http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/mostert/040317
here's another one of my statements that you might have missed: ... it's all about perception, and reality really doesn't factor into situations that involve an almost infinite number of different viewpoints and opinions.
that said, with a number like 35,000 dead iraqi's, and allegations of the u.s. government invading iraq... i can definetly see why some might be a little pissed off at us right now. not like in '01 or '93... now in 2006, we are more hated than any other country on the planet.
there's no way in hell that you can convince me that the war in iraq is helping us defeat terrorism. terrorism is an idea... an idea that i don't like, but that seems to be running rampant across the globe like a disease.
i'm sorry, but i just don't think that pre-emptive invasion of a country that was harmless compared to iran and north korea was such a great idea. since our invasion, north korea has indicated that "pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the united states".
no matter what angle i look at it, i see a bad decision. i could go on and on and on. but it's late now and i have to get up in the morning... goodnight.
correction: that said, with a number like 35,000 dead iraqi's, and allegations of the u.s. government invading iraq on false pretenses... i can definetly see why some might be a little pissed off at us right now. not like in '01 or '93... now in 2006, we are more hated than any other country on the planet.
oh and one more thing: your comparison with the "openness" of this war as opposed to world war II is based an yet another assumption that the stakes now are just as high as they were then. were talking about world war fricking two here! draw your comparisons all you want, but i don't see any other huge military powers bent on world domination. i don't see a hitler anywhere. although if you ask michael savage, he'll tell you that george soros and al gore are even worse.
I guess, in a way, it comes down to what you know you know. I had this discussion with some friends before, who were under the opinion, like you, that folks in the middle east were just minding their own business. Then, the US comes out of nowhere and kicks over their popsicle stand -- what kind of war is this, anyway? Right, I get you. Unfortunately, there's really no evidence to support that. Adding to my first paragraph of my initial response, here's a website that details terrorist attacks, starting the Iranian capture of the US embassy and the kidnapping and ending with 9/11, via the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/world/issues/terrordata/
If that isn't compelling evidence, I really don't know what is. We've absorbed punches pretty consistantly since 1979...with 23 attacks, that makes a little over one a year up to 2001. But since then? Silence. Other than small-scale attacks on troops on the ground, no one has dared to hit us. They hit London, and they hit Madrid, but they know better than to try us again. If that doesn't make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, you've lost hope.
I like to contrast this - roughly 2,800 American civilians died in one day due to 9/11. We've lost approximately 2,500 soldiers in Iraq. I wasn't scared into going to war...I was angered! And I'm still mad. The networks may have blocked out images of my friends and family (strangers, all) jumping from the towers, but I saw them. I saw the people crying in the street, covered in dust. I think people have forgotten what exactly was done to us, and what the stakes are here.
To answer you, I think its terrible that 35,000 Iraqis have died. However, I do not think that we invaded without provocation. Even -if- Iraq has no WMD's, a fact which I am not firmly convinced of, it wasn't as if that was a con on the part of anyone. If they truly have no WMDs, then that was the SAS and CIAs bust, along with every other major intelligence committee in the world. Everyone thought they were there, and that they post a legitimate threat.
he was also an oppressor of renegade organizations like terrorist groups.
Yeah, ones that didn't swear fealty to him. But here's a bunch of links showing just how many of the unclassified interrogations of captured terrorists revealed pretty damning evidence supporting AQ being in bed with Saddam.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23264
At any rate, I find it difficult to believe that most of the civilian deaths in Iraq were due to our troops. I find it exceedingly likely that they died because terrorists made habits of firing from mosques, houses, hospitals, schools, and public buildings. They also are notorious for using crowds (especially children) for cover, and for blaming their own mistakes (read: killed innocents) on the US.
As for public opinion, we cannot let the rest of the world dictate how we are going to live. That is a path that is equivalent to suicide. I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to move from my moral position because of a disagreement on the part of everyone else. As a corollary, Lance Armstrong may be the most hated man in cycling right now; that does not mean he's a bad person, or that he should quit winning. The world hates us because they want what we have. And when I say "world" I mean the mouthpieces, the speakers for the dictators and powermongers that run most of the world. If you could actually poll everyone on the planet, many of them respect and admire us -- because they wish to be here. The ones who want to kill us are the same people who burn books and deface art; they want to destroy what they cannot have, understand, or appreciate.
You say you can see why someone would like to kill us now, and that would be a good point if anyone had attacked us since the Iraq invasion and cited that as a reason. However, that hasn't happened. Up til now, the reason we've been attacked is for doing nothing other than continuing to breathe. If you think that these attacks would cease for any other reason other than the masterminds behind them assuming room temperature, I think you're being naiive.
While we may not have an organized specific target, I think the danger to America from terrorism is no less than that posed by Nazis in World War II. From your vantage point here, we had no business attacking Germany at all. What had they done to us? After all, it was the Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor. Incidentally, on December 7, 1941, 2,403 military deaths were recorded. That number, in my opinion, pales in comparison to the 2,815 civilians murdered while going to work on 9/11.
So...if you support the Normandy invasion, how can you justify your opposition to Iraq? Hitler had done nothing more than agreed with Japan, helped them, supplied them, and promised to help them destroy us. Which, incidentally, sounds suspiciously like the laundry list of crimes Saddam commited against us.
PS. I don't have my own blog. I'd tell you if I did, because I don't make a habit out of lying about things.
I've never had the knack for consistancy of posts...I have to rebut in order to sound good at all.
I hope you knock on wood everytime you think about how we haven't been attacked since 9/11. All I can say to that is that they believe that they're killing us just fine in iraq. The first attack on the world trade center was 8 years before the final blow. These terrorists pride themselves in being patient. It will happen again, and if it doesn't, our soldiers will keep dying.
Iraq is a failure. We've been told a million times now that, "it's getting better, don't worry, it's going to be alright".
When?
By all estimates, it seems that the only way we would be able to create stability in this war torn country would be if we stayed there for at least another decade.
How bad does it have to get before you admit that it was a mistake?
The iraqi military has been infiltrated by the insurgency. Corruption runs rampant. Sectarian violence is on the rise everyday. And you sit back, noticing the death toll (but not really noticing it), and keep saying "it was the right choice".
terrorists have a hand in this too, but they wouldn't be there if it wasn't for us invading.
Wait... where did all the 9/11 hijackers come from? Oh yea! Saudi Arabia. why didn't we invade them? because they own us. there are so many obvious connections between 9/11 and other leaders in the middle east... saddam hussien was just the easy choice, the loser who would be incredibly easy to take out. how can you not notice that? gotta go, i'll continue this later.
ever heard of the rendon group? didn't think so. this is the article that fueled my anger towards this baseless war more than anything else. you assume that there was a concensus in the intelligence community that saddam had wmd's and was a threat. please read this: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8798997/the_man_who_sold_the_war
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8798997/the_man_who_sold_the_war
damn, it won't copy. just go to rollingstone.com and type in the man who sold the war in search.
Tried it, no such article found. Besides, I wasn't aware of the stellar history rolling stone magazine had on reporting world events, especially those to the contrary of common opinion.
Here's an interesting article that appears to be unbiased and objective; an excerpt:
Other nations' intelligence services were similarly aligned with U.S. views. Somewhat remarkably, given how adamantly Germany would oppose the war, the German Federal Intelligence Service held the bleakest view of all, arguing that Iraq might be able to build a nuclear weapon within three years. Israel, Russia, Britain, China, and even France held positions similar to that of the United States; France's President Jacques Chirac told Time magazine last February, "There is a problem—the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq. The international community is right ... in having decided Iraq should be disarmed." In sum, no one doubted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/
200401/pollack
I think there was an international consensus. Hindsight is 20/20 and I think a lot of people are second guessing with additional information.
I think if you watch the news, things are getting better in Iraq. Zarqawi is dead; prior to that we captured documents from him bemoaning the lack of suicide bombing recruits, and the fact that he had only approximately 400 mujahideen left in Baghdad. The day after he died, US and Iraqi forces captured/killed 395 insurgents in Baghdad. It may be totally coincidental, but I think that means we found out who and where they were, and acted. Additioanlly, the Iraqis are daily taking more and more control for themselves. They now control the province of Muthanna by themselves, the first of 18 provinces to be handed over (via CENTCOM's website). Last week they captured two insurgent leaders and killed 30 insurgents on their own (via http://apnews.excite.com/article/
20060707/D8IN3CB80.html )
How can you say there's no progress?
While you are correct in saying that the WTC attacks were 8 years apart, to say that there was a period of calm between is irrevocably incorrect. The US was hit over an average of one attack per year from 1979 to 2001; since then, there has not been one successful attack other than IEDs and car bombs in Iraq. To me, that sounds like progress.
If the government is using the military as a shield for our civilians, then they are doing precisely what I think they ought to.
While I see your point that Saudi Arabia is not exactly our friend, I have a minor point of contention. We cannot condemn a country for what their population supports. As a nation, we can only act against other nations. The reason we were justified in attacking Afghanistan and Iraq is because they violated our rules of engagement, e.g., harboring terrorists. As a government, Saudi Arabia has not done so. This precludes any sort of move against them politically, because they have officially done no wrong. Us attacking them would be similar to Israel attacking the U.S. for our neo-nazi groups and political parties. Popular support doesn't equal government sponsorship.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/8798997/the_man_who_sold_the_war
if that link doesn't work, try searching for "sold the war". it brings up the link everytime i try it. seriously, read it. it's damning stuff. basically talks about how the cia and pentagon under the direction of the administration gave a 16 million dollar contract to a company called the rendon group that specializes in "perception management" through the manipulation of information.
"His firm, the Rendon Group, has made millions off government contracts since 1991, when it was hired by the CIA to help "create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power." Working under this extraordinary transfer of secret authority, Rendon assembled a group of anti-Saddam militants, personally gave them their name -- the Iraqi National Congress -- and served as their media guru and "senior adviser" as they set out to engineer an uprising against Saddam. It was as if President John F. Kennedy had outsourced the Bay of Pigs operation to the advertising and public-relations firm of J. Walter Thompson."
"By law, the Bush administration is expressly prohibited from disseminating government propaganda at home. But in an age of global communications, there is nothing to stop it from planting a phony pro-war story overseas -- knowing with certainty that it will reach American citizens almost instantly."
sneaky, sneaky, sneaky... it makes me furious.
I'm not really sure where you're getting this idea that there was a concensus among the international community that saddam had wmd's. Could you link some articles to that for me? Here's some links that show there was NOT a concensus:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11927856
"When no weapons of mass destruction surfaced in Iraq, President Bush insisted that all those WMD claims before the war were the result of faulty intelligence. But a former top CIA official, Tyler Drumheller — a 26-year veteran of the agency — has decided to do something CIA officials at his level almost never do: Speak out.
He tells correspondent Ed Bradley the real failure was not in the intelligence community but in the White House. He says he saw how the Bush administration, time and again, welcomed intelligence that fit the president's determination to go to war and turned a blind eye to intelligence that did not."
--http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/21/60minutes/main1527749.shtml
rumsfeld caught in a lie about "bulletproof" evidence of there being wmd's in tikrit and northern baghdad... "we know where they are": http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/05/10/tds-on-rummy-and-mcgovern/
"In an assessment that differs sharply with his view today, Dick Cheney more than a decade ago defended the decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf War, telling a Seattle audience that capturing Saddam wouldn't be worth additional U.S. casualties or the risk of getting "bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.""--
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/192908_cheney29.html
round and round we go... none of this makes any sense.
“And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many." --dick cheney, '92
Washington's New Watchword: Containment
As Iraq’s weak new government takes shape, the Bush administration’s best hope is for a non-bloodbath. ---http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12920385/site/newsweek
Wait... is this progress?
If you look at the terrorism timeline of attacks on United States targets over the last 30 years, you do see an average of one attack per year. I'm not sure what the average death toll was in all of these attacks put together. I'm assuming that it can't be worse than daily suicide bombing attacks and ied's in Iraq every single day directed at innocent civilians and american soldiers. On top of that, massacres and ethnic clensing running rampant. How can you even dream of progress being made in a country that's obviously being torn apart? This is a huge disconnect from reality.
Ever heard of the one-percent doctrine? I haven't read the book yet, but the idea and how it relates to this administration is very interesting.
-----
Suskind describes the Cheney doctrine as follows: "Even if there's just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty. It's not about 'our analysis,' as Cheney said. It's about 'our response.' … Justified or not, fact-based or not, 'our response' is what matters. As to 'evidence,' the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn't apply."
There is a complex interplay between an act's possible consequences, evidence, and the probabilities involved. And sometimes, of course, the probability justifying action of some sort is even less than 1 percent.
Imagine what would happen in various everyday situations were the Cheney doctrine to be applied. A young man is in a bar and another man gives him a hard stare. If the young Cheneyite feels threatened and believes the probability to be at least 1 percent that the other man will shoot him, then he has a right to preemptively shoot him in "self-defense."
Nor do they need consistency. A companion to the Cheney 1 percent action doctrine (if the probability is at least 1 percent, act) is the administration's non-action doctrine (if the probability is less than 99 percent, then don't act). This latter doctrine is generally invoked in discussions of global warming, where it seems absolute certainty is required to justify any significant action. Ideology determines which of these two inconsistent doctrines to invoke.
----http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2120605&page=2
the atlantic link didn't work by the way... i wish it were easier to link pages in my comments. it never seems to copy right.
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