Friday, October 01, 2004

hard truth

I'm having more and more of a problem with the "flypaper" argument, that is, that violence in Iraq has drawn terrorist activity there rather than here. "Better there than here" I keep hearing.

I've heard lots of logical arguments against this, about why its a fallacy, why it won't work. But my argument is moral.

It's like in order to keep ourselves safe we gave a terrorist the key to the house across the street. Better him than us, we say, shaking our heads at the evil of terrorism.

A terrorist is going to do what he does without any help from us. We're not to blame for his existence. But when we hear our leaders patting themselves on the back for inviting terrorists to invade another country in hopes that they won't attack us, it's not only faulty. It's sick.

Is that the kind of people we want to be?