Med Model for Fighting Terrorism
WizBang has a great new idea on how to fight terrorism. Up to now, the main options discussed have been a judicial approach that addresses root causes, and a military approach. Of those two, it's fairly obvious (at least to me) that the military approach of the Bush years worked better than the judicial approach of the Clinton years.
Now WizBang suggests a third way -- a medical approach:
"In medicine, when one has a crisis, one deals with the symptoms first, then you go looking for the "root cause." For example, when a patient is not breathing, you get them breathing again, THEN you start worrying about why they stopped. The first priority is always on short-term survival, THEN long-term concerns. That's why most medical professionals consider "the operation was a success, but the patient died" a truly obscene joke.
In the war on terror, we really do need to look at what is causing the terrorism. But first, we need to stop it. The repeated calls for "patience" and "restraint" and "understanding" all come with a price tag. And those price tags are almost always affixed to the toes of the innocent.
Once we've stopped the bleeding, then we can look for the ulcer. But diagnosing and treating the ulcer won't do any good for a corpse."
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