Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek has a thoughtful post on “Tierney and Pape on the ‘War’ on Terror.” (Don provides links to several important articles on the “War on Terror.”) Don is an economist and thinks “on the margin.” That’s smart. I also worry, however, whether some decisions are now behind us, whether there is at this point anything that would induce al Qaeda to stop their attacks on us. If not, then it seems that their leaders, at least, just have to be tracked down and killed. The rub, of course, is that the tracking down will likely affect others adversely (even a relatively “clean” special forces squad will cause harm to innocents; al Qaeda members take hostages, deliberately site themselves among innocents, deliberately seek to maximize collateral damage, etc., etc.) who might thereby be induced to join the al Qaeda cause. On balance, what’s the best policy? Well, it seems likely to be a matter of balancing. (What seems more clear than ever is that the decision to go to war with Iraq was a colossal mistake. Since that decision was made and cannot be undone, what is now the best path forward?)
Whatever direction is taken, surely the “War on Terror” has to be shown to be absurd. How can one wage war on a tactic? One can wage war on some group of terrorists, but not on a tactic.