On a tangentially related note, one of the things that bothers me most about the "war on terror" is that a really serious terrorist attack might provoke a shocking overreaction. Western countries have (a) populations who are quick to anger and show little interest in the suffering of people in far-away lands; and (b) nuclear weapons. This is a bad combination.
(Well, perhaps we should see it as a primitive form of deterrence, but if so it doesn’t seem to be working.)
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