Why No Attacks?

Megan McArdle finds Amy Zegart warning people not to jump to conclusions -- like, the Bush admin. anti-terrorism policy must be working because we haven't had any terrorist attacks since 9/11 -- since causality is much different than correlation. Ms. McArdle runs through other possibilities unrelated to Bush's policies to explain why attacks might not have occurred, mostly demographic, attitudinal, and legal factors, but ignores one big one: we have been attacked. Not "we" as in the U.S. proper, but I think it's silly to assume that the U.S. proper is al-Qaeda's only target. It isn't. But there have been attacks in the U.K., Spain, Afghanistan, Iraq, and many developing countries. Not all of these are directly associated with al-Qaeda (tho some probably are), but they are representative of the larger jihadist movement. Part of this was bin Laden's intent: to radicalize other Muslims, even if it wasn't under his banner specifically.

The U.S. is too isolated for a lot of attacks on the mainland. But our allies have been hit, as have other regimes that jihadists despise. This fact is often lost, but it shouldn't be.

Elsewhere, Ms. McArdle has a pretty strong primer on taxes, how they influence incentives, and why tax deductions are worse than tax cuts.