An intelligent apraisal of the situation with a fool's judgement.

Like any situation in international politics, the morality of bombing Afghanistan is murky. It is hard to call the deaths of the villagers of Herat "right" if the deaths of New Yorkers are "wrong." Yet, we should not care. We understand our goal as pummelling those who attack us. Roy writes:

"This is not to suggest that the terrorists who perpetrated the outrage on September 11 should not be hunted down and brought to book. They must be."

"But is war the best way to track them down? Will burning the haystack find you the needle? Or will it escalate the anger and make the world a living hell for all of us?"

He devotes all of two sentences to explaining the reason that Afghanistan is recieving the Rumsfeld treatment. It would be "neater" had Al Quaeda set up its physical infrastructure in Antarctica, but it didn't.

Roy and those who share his opinion should only be thankfull that we're so stupid and moralistic as to drop our "culturally imperialistic peanut-bombs" to the Afghani civilians while we incinerate their country in a global show of force.

The outside world is a brutal place, and America will not let Hobbesian disorder wash up on her shores. Empathize with Afghanis? Of course. Relent in our pursuit of order? Never.