(no subject)

[meanfreepath]

Why does Israel have to be put on the defensive internationally after its commandos use limited force in response to being attacked with potentially deadly weapons? Would anyone be complaining if the men and women of the US Navy were to use lethal force to defend themselves in the course of interdicting Somali pirates?

Comments

Re: Unrelated to the main topic, but I'm having a tough time controlling my emotions in this respons

[arctangent.livejournal.com]

I don't go to bed worried that I might wake up for the last time to a barrage of rockets. Nor do I ever bother to contemplate the possibility that I might be blown to bits or maimed by a suicide bomber every time I board a bus or go shopping.

The Republican Party tried to use this exact logic after 9/11 to claim that any and all foreign-policy actions taken by the USA were justified because otherwise we would all, from that point forward, "live in fear" of dying in 9/11-like attacks.

The issue, of course, is that whether one lives in fear of something is distinct from how high a probability that thing has of happening, and the main reason there were in fact people living in fear of their own personal hometown being annihilated by a barrage of suitcase nukes/hijacked passenger planes/rapidly expanding clouds of weaponized anthrax was the Republican propaganda itself.