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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

Well, we have historical examples of both approaches.

The British provide the stereotypical example of my suggestion. The famous "Keep Calm and Carry On" slogan, of course, comes from their experience during the Blitz. (And yes, I realize it was never published in that time, but it still typifies the response.) The Blitz killed 40,000 civilians, but people did basically go on with their lives and let the government handle things, because that was the best way to do it. Freaking out wasn't going to help the war effort.

The British provide another example of the approach with The Troubles. Not so much in Ireland, really, but I think the response to the attacks in Great Britain qualify.

The British approach seems to work well. The American approach got us mired in two unwinnable wars, sank the country deep into debt, and wrecked the economy. I know which one I prefer.

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I don't get the analogy with the Blitz. At the time the entire British Empire, military and civilians all, was mobilized to stop the guys who were dropping the bombs. The resources and powers we're devoting to the "War on Terror" are a mere fraction in relative terms to those resources and powers at the disposal of Winston Churchill.

Well, we could spend hours arguing over the Blitz, or we could concentrate on the other analogy I made which you presumably did get....

Why would we need to spend hours arguing? Your analogy makes no sense at all there. Nobody is arguing that Americans aren't sufficiently panicky. It's an argument about the resources, powers and attention that should be devoted to fighting terrorism relative to its death count. The Blitz utterly fails as an example of a response proportional to a death count. The ongoing response was massive relative to the "mere" tens of thousands killed.

As to "The Troubles": Are you arguing that the British government gave it proportional attention and resources for number of people killed? I don't believe the death count was ever that high, but it was a hugely important issue for both the Irish and the British, again, for a variety of reasons that go well beyond the death count. Which, of course, is my point.

I don't know if they gave The Troubles proportional attention, but it was at least a lot more proportional than the American response to 9/11, and turned out way better.

The troubles escalated until government ministers were being killed, and two different prime ministers narrowly missed being assassinated. Ultimately the UK capitulated and the terrorist leaders ended up as cabinet ministers in the new Irish government.

Are you really suggesting letting the terrorists win?

If "letting the terrorists win" means getting out of mideast hellholes, ceasing to assassinate civilians with drones, and stopping the continual interference in various places they consider holy, then yes, I'm absolutely suggesting that.

We need to let go of the idea that it's us or them, and that either we win and they lose, or they win and we lose.

Wouldn't an outcome analogous to the modern-day UK and Ireland be great? People getting along well, no violence, reasonably stable governments? I don't see why you paint this as a bad outcome.

I totally agree that US foreign policy is terrible and should change.

However if that happened as a result of terrorism rather than politics then we would just have an escalation of terrorism anyone who was unhappy with the US (legitimately or not) started to use the now proven strategy. The 'police state' tactics we see now are nothing compared to what we'd see then.

You seem to be advocating terrorism instead of campaigning for justice.

"You seem to be advocating terrorism instead of campaigning for justice."

Thank you for the reminder that debating these topics on HN is pointless because everybody's a complete nut.

In the Irish case, terrorists achieved their stated objectives by using terrorism. You said that was a good outcome. I don't see how that isn't advocating terrorism.

If you don't understand that the ends don't justify the means, then I really don't know what to say.

> If "letting the terrorists win" means getting out of mideast hellholes, ceasing to assassinate civilians with drones, and stopping the continual interference in various places they consider holy, then yes, I'm absolutely suggesting that.

Sounds like ends (violence stopping) justifying the means (letting the terrorists win) to me.

You have that completely backwards. The means is what you do, and the ends is what happens after. The means here would be ceasing to kill and oppress. That is justified all by itself.

If you like, but it's not simply a choice between what you do (ends) or how you do it (means), it's both how and what that matter.

Right but you are justifying the terrorist means (killing civilians randomly) based on their ends (inducing political chance).

No I am not. I'm getting righteously tired of this ridiculous conversational tactic, in which the other guy takes what I say, then speeds about six thousand light years in a random direction using a warp drive built on speculation and assumptions, then attacks whatever random space junk he finds there.

If you think I said it, then go find it and quote it for me.

You: "Wouldn't an outcome analogous to the modern-day UK and Ireland be great? People getting along well, no violence, reasonably stable governments? I don't see why you paint this as a bad outcome."

That outcome also included dead British cabinet ministers, civilians and infrastructure and decades of fear and hatred.

I just said that it's a good outcome. Which it is. At no point did I say that this good outcome justifies the decades of violence that preceded it.

You said it in support of the UK's approach to terrorism. Which was to capitulate to the terrorists.

And?

I'm pretty sure his point is as follows:

  good means, good ends - no need for justification
   bad means, good ends - the ends justify the means
  good means,  bad ends - the means justify the ends
   bad means,  bad ends - no possibility of justification

UK terrorism is bad means. UK political change is good ends. If the ends didn't justify the means, they wouldn't be good ends. Any statement that the means were bad but the ends were good is justification; otherwise, your opinion would be that because the means were bad, the ends were necessarily bad too, even though they would otherwise appear to be good.

I think I see the disconnect now. The assumption is being made that the British method for fighting terrorism that I'm advocating results in more or worse attacks than the American method. Therefore by advocating the British method, I'm implicitly advocating for more or worse terrorist attacks, and then justifying it by saying that the outcome is better.

The disconnect is that I don't accept this assumption. I see no evidence that the US method fights terrorism better. In fact, it appears to result in far more and worse attacks than the British method.

Therefore, I am advocating for something that I believe will mitigate terrorism as it happens, and produce a better outcome. Thus falling squarely in the "no need for justification" line of your summary.

The Irish terrorists didn't cease their attacks because of the British method of fighting them. They succeeded in bombing mainland Britain 14 times, and they caused more than 50,000 casualties including 3,500 deaths. London rail stations to this day have no trash cans because the IRA repeatedly left bombs in them.

They stopped their attacks when their demands were met.

I fail to see what you are advocating other than giving in to terrorism.

And what if I am advocating giving in to terrorism? That does not justify terrorism, as you seem to have said.

Sure, the Irish didn't cease their attacks because of how the British fought them. Likewise, various anti-American terrorists haven't ceased their attacks because of how the US fights them.

If you consider terrorism to be a valid means of advancing a political agenda, then you are justifying it.

Your proposal implies that killing civilians should earn you a seat at the negotiating table.

It makes the most sense to consider the IRA and the UK as two separate groups. The IRA getting their demands met justifies terrorism for them; bad means, good ends. The UK getting peace justifies capitulating to the IRA for them; bad means, good ends. Why is capitulation bad means? The same reason that giving in to any bully is bad - you lose, the bully gets power, and it sets a precedent.

That said, the UK government certainly did a lot to piss off the Irish and it's not clearly the case that in the events leading up to the conflict all of the UK's actions were great and the Irish's were horrible.

So, again, you're assuming that the UK approach (or outcome) causes more terrorism, while the US approach causes less. And again, I disagree.

Giving in to terrorism does not end terrorism, it only ends the violent expression of it. If you do this, you end up living in fear (i.e. terror) that if you do not continue to do what the terrorists want, there will be more violence.

Anyone who cooperates with an abusive power does so because they have been sufficiently terrorized by that power and they don't want to risk further abuse. That kind of cooperation is not a good outcome; it's only the acceptance of coercion, because the alternative is worse.

So, let's deliberately choose the worse outcome because... nope, I don't get it.

That's not my point. My point is that the lesser of two evils is still evil. If I rob you at gunpoint and you give me your wallet and I spare your life, it's still a bad outcome, it just isn't as bad as it could be.

Why is that an interesting point? There isn't necessarily a non-evil way to proceed, just worse and less-worse ways. I never said this was all roses and wine.

> I just said that it's a good outcome. Which it is.

I was only arguing with this.

> There isn't necessarily a non-evil way to proceed, just worse and less-worse ways. I never said this was all roses and wine.

This is all I mean by bad means, bad ends. This mindset opens up the discussion to debating the pros and cons of different approaches. Anyway, take care.

Clearly you don't. Giving in to the demands of whoever bombs you is not the lesser of two evils.

By the same logic, ff terrorism under the flag of a cause is seen as an effective disincentive for policy change in a particular direction, then we would just have an escalation of false-flag terrorism sponsored by anyone who wants to avoid particular policy changes (whatever the merits) as they adopted the now-proven strategy.

Your position is no less "advocating terrorism" than the one you responded to. The only way not to encourage terrorism is to evaluate policy changes on their own merits, and not be swayed from acting on the merits of the policy changes themselves by the fact that terrorists have stated goals related to those policy changes, either as a positive or negative factor.

No, because there would be no proof that the false flag terrorism was having an effect, unlike the case where terrorism led to an obvious change in policy, as was the case in Ireland).

I agree totally that policy changes should be considered on their own merits. Therefore we should defend ourselves against terrorist attacks without regard for their stated goals.

> No, because there would be no proof that the false flag terrorism was having an effect

There are certainly ways of assessing why particularly policies are and are not chosen. The impact of "Can't do what terrorists want, so we must vote no" is no more difficult to assess than "Must do what terrorists want, so we must vote yes".

I never said anything about voting or not based on terrorist actions.

mikeash said it was ok not to defend so hard against terrorism because the outcome was good. I was refuting that.

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