A Too Modest Proposal, It would Seem by Anthony McCarthy

I was going to wait until this developed further and do intend to write the analysis that I promised Curious Wavefunction, but have decided to post the exchange we’ve been having on the topic of Sam Harris’ idea of a nuclear first strike against Moslems. The paragraph by Sam Harris is quoted by Curious Waveform in comment #83. I will begin to analyze it next week.

Curious Wavefunctions and my comments are the only ones included here. If other people enter the discussion I might include them. This exchange is contained in the comments to a post at The Intersection: Ken Miller: "Why Jerry Coyne is Wrong"

Note: I will point out that the proposal, first made at comment #88, to kill the scientists , who would be capable of building the nuclear weapons, which Sam Harris is willing to murder tens of millions of innocent civilians in a day to prevent being deployed, would be a far smaller number of murders than what Harris and many of his new atheist admirers on the blogs contemplate.

And it would have the benefit of preventing their being built. We could threaten to wipe out any country which we suspected of having a weapons program with our nuclear stockpiles right now. We could tell them unless they handed over all of their relevant scientists, physicists, chemists, and engineers so we could test them for competence and liquidate them, we will kill everyone. I suspect that any country faced with obliteration would be willing to make that trade. Or at least the second one would.

My proposal is contingent on people finding Sam Harris’ proposal reasonable enough to take seriously. I believe mine is the more reasonable since it is preemptive and it is also far less drastic in the numbers of people killed. And, as Sam Harris’ doesn’t, it targets those most responsible for endangering us. The scientists and engineers producing the weapons in the first place. It is a serious proposal, it has to be considering that Sam Harris and many of his admirers are able to calmly contemplate nuclear first strikes that would, by his own admission kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a day.


# 75. Anthony McCarthy Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 1:16 pm

If Ayaan Hirsi Ali's stated intention is to promote womens' rights in the middle east hooking up with someone who advocates nuking them in the millions sort of might put a dent in her effort.

I'd imagine even atheists in the cities that would be incinerated might not be too keen on her now that she's joined up with Harris and Hitchens. But I've been skeptical of her from the start.

# 77. Curious Wavefunction Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 1:21 pm

Anothony, have you read "Infidel"? You render Hirsi Ali a great disservice by primarily thinking of her in terms of an association with Sam Harris. Please, get over Sam Harris. Although I think part of his writing is spot on (again, not painting someone with a monochromatic brush is the mark of a reasonable response), there are bigger fish to fry. And did you bother to read his response and the relevant paragraph in his book? Care to debate the actual substance and details?

# 80. Anthony McCarthy Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 1:26 pm

You render Hirsi Ali a great disservice by primarily thinking of her in terms of an association with Sam Harris.

I'm pretty confident that her critics in the middle-east and other Islamic countries will certainly notice that she's on the board of his hilariously named "Reason Project". White guys sitting on North American and Europe might let Harris go on his "nuke em'" stuff, but when you're getting a target painted on you, it sort of focuses the concentration.

Harris wrote what he wrote. I'm hardly the only one who has noticed or commented on it. That horse left the barn a few years back.

# 81. Curious Wavefunction Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 1:30 pm

Again, Ali's association with Harris is not the locus of her identity, it is not the bedrock of her existence. Ali is a brave woman who suffered genital mutilation and had her agent killed for her "heretical" views. Well, ok. But a reasoned respnonse needs us to examine all sides of a debate. Let's start with the relevant paragraph. Now what do you think is objectionable? Give me some details.
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# 83. Curious Wavefunction Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 1:39 pm

Sorry, I forgot to post the paragraph (from pg 128-129 of The End of Faith)

"It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence. There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime-as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day-but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe. How would such an unconscionable act of self-defense be perceived by the rest of the Muslim world? It would likely be seen as the first incursion of a genocidal crusade. The horrible irony here is that seeing could make it so: this very perception could plunge us into a state of hot war with any Muslim state that had the capacity to pose a nuclear threat of its own. All of this is perfectly insane, of course: I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world's population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher's stone, and unicorns. That it would be a horrible absurdity for so many of us to die for the sake of myth does not mean, however, that it could not happen. Indeed, given the immunity to all reasonable intrusions that faith enjoys in our discourse, a catastrophe of this sort seems increasingly likely. We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the nineteen hijackers may one day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry. The Muslim world in particular must anticipate this possibility and find some way to prevent it. Given the steady proliferation of technology, it is safe to say that time is not on our side."

Now please let me know what abhorrent problems you see with these words. I will be happy to go over the paragraph line-by-line since it seems to alarm you so much.

# 85. Anthony McCarthy Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 2:31 pm

CW, I've read Harris. You think being two-faced is a virtue?

There are few things that could discredit Ayaan Hirsi Ali [more] than liking up with Harris and Hitchens. I assume she's able to make an adult decision and accept the consequences, good or bad. Though it's possible she's being used, though I'd think assuming that would be rather patronizing. Whatever, if she is sincere about her goals, it was about as bad a move as could be imagined.

# 86. Curious Wavefunction Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 2:39 pm

So what exactly is two-faced about this? Please indicate the exact words in the paragraph above. The scenario as is described seems to me a very realistically possible future scenario in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, as documented by several people, for instance by David Sanger in his recent "The Inheritance". And the criticism of Harris is by a single individual, Chris Hedges, who also claims that both Harris and Hitchens would willingly torture people. Maybe that's why Hitchens had himself waterboarded. Even though I strongly disagree with both Hitchens and Harris in parts (Hitchens for instance seems to have no understanding of Hinduism and thinks that the fiasco that was Osho Rajneesh is emblematic of everything that could be wrong with the religion), unlike some people I don't want to interrogate them with a single brushstroke.
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# 88. Anthony McCarthy Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 6:35 pm

Curious Waveform, I think I might do an analysis of that paragraph, it's toing to take a while because I'm going to look for evidence to support or refute what he says. It's going to take a little while, I will post it on my blog.

I forget, did he talk about nuking North Korea? I don't seem to recall him thinking that might be a good idea.

You do know that he's putting a lot of peoples' lives at stake for the sake of those 19 men, don't you. Maybe, since they're the source of the problem, we should kill all the physicists. There are a lot fewer the ten million nuclear physicists. Or maybe just all of those in states that aren't nuclear yet. Though, actually, it's those with intercontinental missiles and nuclear weapons now that are the problem Maybe we should kill them all too, just as a precaution. Then we can start on the rest of the scientists who develop munitions. And industrial chemicals, and potential biological weapons..

# 90. Curious Wavefunction Says:
June 13th, 2009 at 9:25 am

Let me just say that I look forward to your nuanced and insightful analysis of the paragraph. All this talk about killing physicists, North Koreans and random Muslims detracts from the very specific words that he used and detracts from his description of a realistic scenario now recognized by many analysts as a huge problem in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. I look forward to reading your post. And would also suggest that instead of killing physicists we should kill chemical industry manufacturers, since without them there would no nuclear and chemical material to work with. But However I also propose that we don't descend into sarcasm; it draws your attention away from the matter at hand. Again, I very much look forward to your detailed and insightful analysis of those words. Please let me know if I can be of help.

# 91. Curious Wavefunction Says:
June 13th, 2009 at 9:30 am

Let's focus on the substance and actual details of what he said, and argue those.

# 94. Anthony McCarthy Says:
June 13th, 2009 at 12:44 pm

Curious Wavefunction, if it's all right to commit, as Harris says, " an unthinkable crime-as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day" due to the danger of a relative handful of fanatical moslems getting their hands on a nuclear weapon, why not save tens of millions of innocent civilians and kill every scientist who has the technical knowledge of how to produce those nuclear weapons in the first place.

Or do you believe that their being physicists, chemists, etc. make their lives so much more valuable than those of the tens of millions of innocent civilians, that it excuses their part in producing those weapons which Harris, and clearly you, are so worried about?

If you don't clear that question up, I'll have to conclude the answer is yes. Please clear up this point by telling me why it's all right to do what Harris proposes but wrong to do what I've asked about.

# 96. Curious Wavefunction Says:
June 13th, 2009 at 2:41 pm

Anthony McCarthy, now we are talking about substance, thank you. Sam Harris's paragraph clearly rests on an implicit assumption that is made clear in multiple place in the analysis; that the people who would get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry share a mental makeup similar to that of the 19 9/11 hijackers. First of all let me answer your other question upfront and say that the scientists you are mentioning are not out to deliberately kill and maim innocents, and not right now whereas our, Harris's and everyone's else's discussion concerns such fundamentalists and the dilemmas of the collateral damage that would be inflicted in fighting them. As a relatively trivial side-point, even killing all nuclear scientists is not going to deprive the general population of this knowledge, while undoubtedly depriving it of peaceful applications of atomic energy in producing electricity and radioisotopes for medical and agricultural applications. Also, we might as well say that we should kill politicians who are averse to signing test-ban treaties and who were responsible for the transfer of nuclear technology between countries, in terms of a contribution much more massive than that made by scientists. I think you will agree that such discussions don't get us very far. The fact is that the nuclear weapons are out there. We are concerned with people who are out to get them right now. We are not much concerned about what happened in the past. We want to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack right now. The real question is, how do we do this in the very near future? Harris is discussing such a scenario and trying to answer that question as well as raising other questions. So let's first get that other point out of the way. Now let's start analyzing Harris. He starts by saying:

"There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon"

Here he is talking about people just like the 9/11 hijackers who would get their hands on such weapons. I am sure you know that people in the State Department and the intelligence agencies spend their days and nights worrying about the same people, and they have been doing so for years before Sam Harris wrote his book. They worry about the Taliban who are 60 miles from Islamabad, and they worry about the ISI which is infested with fundamentalists. They would not worry so much if they thought that these people would be fazed by deterrence. Thus this worry and scenario is not specific to Sam Harris. If you want to read more, I will recommend "The Inheritance" by David Sanger in which he describes Pakistan's slipshod management of its nuclear arsenal.

Harris furthermore goes on to say:

"What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime-as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day-but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe. "

Here Harris is referring to the now well-discussed fact documented by several government officials that Pakistan might have a spare nuclear arsenal that is mobile. In addition the Pakistani government refuses to disclose the location of its current arsenal and has contingency plans to move it around. Thus, if Islamic fundamentalists get their hands on these weapons, the scenario is likely to remain the same as both Harris and history itself note. The US has several precision weapons in its arsenal, but these would be of scant use if the location of the Pakistani arsenal is not known. Now consider that when the hunt for Osama bin Laden was on, more than one US official had considered the use of "small"tactical nuclear weapons in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. This was because of the great difficulty (still thought to be so) of scouting around in the maze of caves beneath the countryside where Bin Laden was hiding and attempting guerilla raids. Similar proposals had been put forward by the government during the Vietnam War. In fact they were considered seriously enough to ask JASON, the scientific advisory group, to author a report titled "Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia". And of course, both Truman and Eisenhower seriously flirted with the idea of using nukes in Korea. All of these excursions in Afghanistan, Vietnam and Korea would have involved thousands and perhaps of millions of casualties of the kind Harris is mentioning. We may find these proposals abhorrent, but the point is that they were considered not by members of any particular political party or by rabid extremists or atheists but by relatively dispassionate officials in high echelons of the government. Therefore such kind of thinking is not limited to Harris, and predates his book by several years in many different contexts. Just like Harris, these officials considered this at one time or the other as one of the few available options. Their thinking involved introspection and they were aware, just like Harris is, that it would have been an "unthinkable crime", but also like Harris says they were thinking of these options as last resorts. Also note Harris's words, "may" which were converted to "should", a huge difference in terms of language.

Ok, on to the next paragraph:
"How would such an unconscionable act of self-defense be perceived by the rest of the Muslim world? It would likely be seen as the first incursion of a genocidal crusade. The horrible irony here is that seeing could make it so: this very perception could plunge us into a state of hot war with any Muslim state that had the capacity to pose a nuclear threat of its own. All of this is perfectly insane, of course: I have just described a plausible scenario in which much of the world's population could be annihilated on account of religious ideas that belong on the same shelf with Batman, the philosopher's stone, and unicorns. That it would be a horrible absurdity for so many of us to die for the sake of myth does not mean, however, that it could not happen. Indeed, given the immunity to all reasonable intrusions that faith enjoys in our discourse, a catastrophe of this sort seems increasingly likely."

Now here, the real point Harris is making is to actually bear upon the incalculable harm that could be done, either by West or Middle East, simply by adhering to primitive concepts of faith. The focus here is on the great evils (indeed, Harris himself describes it as "perfectly insane" because it quite certainly is), even in terms of possibilities, that faith can engender in terms of action or retribution. As he says, we are told to realise the "horrible absurdity" that results from the consideration of such genocidal actions. And yet we are forced to consider them because we frequently deal with an enemy, exemplified by the 10 young men on 9/11, that by its actions imposes such a tortured analysis on us. So the goal here seems to point out the rather fantastic and unspeakable notions of utter horror that we are forced to consider, and all because of the fundamental problems with belief. Now you may disagree with this, but it is important to note that the essence of the argument in this paragraph is not the consideration of actual preemptive action but an analysis of the consequences of belief, and this is what this paragraph should be taken for, not as some explicit consideration involving the use of weapons of mass destruction. I think that's quite clear.

Finally, moving on to the last part:

We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the nineteen hijackers may one day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry. The Muslim world in particular must anticipate this possibility and find some way to prevent it. Given the steady proliferation of technology, it is safe to say that time is not on our side."

So here Harris is quite explicitly comparing the people who would contemplate use of such weaponry to the 9/11 hijackers; this quite clearly does not include all Muslim countries or all Muslims. The state department worries about the same people, for instance those who are part of the Taliban which is currently close to Islamabad. Harris also says that to prevent any unconscionable action on either their part or ours, it is the Muslim world itself that must take matters into its own hands and prevent such people from getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction. This is a point that has been made by dozens of other commentators who have nothing to do with the New Atheists; Ahmed Rashid, Fareed Zakaria and Tom Friedman for instance. The question that Harris raises is a dilemma. And not only is it a dilemma, it's a real-life dilemma that has enormous and immediate practical consequences. As I noted before, it has been faced in Asia and Afghanistan before by US presidents and they have also intensely grappled with the accompanying considerations of collateral damage and related issues. And it continues to be an active issue under scrutiny. To condense all of the above into a statement saying "Harris wants to kill millions of innocent Muslims by nuking them" ignores the details and nuance and is unbecoming of a rational and balanced debate.
# 97. Anthony McCarthy Says:
June 13th, 2009 at 3:04 pm

I will address those questions when I have had time to study and analyze the paragraph, it's become rather famous and I don't want to go over too much ground that has already been covered.

But in the mean time, what about my proposal? I should let you know that I have decided to post this exchange at my blog along with a more formal version of my counter proposal. Forgive the lack of italics, I'm reluctant to use them after the incident I set off here the other day.

Here is the final note to the exchange:

< < I will point out that the proposal to kill the scientists who would be capible of building the nuclear weapons, which Sam Harris is willing to murder tens of millions of innocent civilians in a day to prevent being deployed, would be a far smaller number of murders than what Harris and many of his new atheist admirers on the blogs contemplate.

And it would have the benefit of preventing their being built. We could threaten to wipe out any country which we suspected of having a weapons program with our nuclear stockpiles right now. We could tell them unless they handed over all of their relevant scientists, physicists, chemists, and engineers so we could test them for competence and liquidate them, we will kill everyone. I suspect that any country faced with obliteration would be willing to make that trade. Or at least the second one would.

My proposal is contingent on people finding Sam Harris' proposal reasonable enough to take seriously. I believe mine is the more reasonable since it is preemptive and it is also far less drastic in the numbers of people killed. And, as Sam Harris' doesn't, it targets those most responsible for endangering us. The scientists and engineers producing the weapons in the first place. >>

http://anthonymic.blogspot.com/

I will note that I am quite as serious about this as Harris and those who agree with him are. I have to be, considering what they deem to be perfectly acceptable.
# 98. Anthony McCarthy Says:
June 13th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

Oh, I should note, I'm at a remote computer right now and can't post to my blog from here. I'll add these two comments when I go home tonight.
# 99. Curious Wavefunction Says:
June 13th, 2009 at 3:43 pm

We certainly can propose that the Taliban hand their scientific experts over to us. I doubt whether the proposal would work. No harm in trying though.

# 100. Anthony McCarthy Says:
June 13th, 2009 at 4:45 pm

Does the Taliban have a nuclear program?

Since Iran and North Korea are the two countries most in the news for having active or potential or actual nuclear programs, and North Korea is suspected of selling nuclear technology, I think they are actually more likely to be a problem of the kind Harris foresees as necessitating nuclear conflagration. And they have the virtue of having relatively locatable nuclear installations and governmental centers to target.

I am trying to remember if Harris used North Korea, which had been in the news as the major concern for developing nuclear weapons in the near future as he began his career in anti-religious invective.. Though, as I told you I have to wait to borrow from the library. If you have Harris at hand, you could tell me if he proposed targeting North Korea. I believe the catastrophic "Axis of Evil" speech might have predated the paragraph in question. I really would like to know if he included North Korea in his proposed first strike targets.

(To be continued.)
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This is the exchange to date. I will post the rest of it, if it continues and will post an analysis of the paragraph Curious Wavefunction quotes in comment #83