Terrorism is wrong, no matter what you're trying to do.

If “insert some minor and otherwise insignificant event here” doesn’t happen, then the terrorists have won.
It seems like I can’t read the daily news or open my email without someone making that claim. Of course, there are people who use it in a very wry sense, like if someone smiles and says “If I don’t get another drink then the terrorists have won,” as an excuse to stay for a couple extra minutes at the bar.
But aside from that I consider the entire statement to be asinine. It is not only ludicrous in most contexts, but disrespectful to victims of terrorists attacks.
A recent use of this invective came in the form of an opinion column which I get from different organizations and people every day.
It said, “If spending in Iraq means America can’t afford health care for our children or infrastructure maintenance to keep our bridges from falling down, then the terrorists have won.”
Now, as it happens, I happen to disagree with our spending practices in Iraq. We “won” a long time ago (At least I think that’s what the “Mission Accomplished” banner was supposed to mean when the President stood underneath it in 2003 and declard an end to combat operations in Iraq) but we still spend millions of dollars and hundreds of lives in a cyclone of violence that seems never-ending.
Even with in the depths of my disagreement with the war, I still think the use of terrorism as a prod for action against it is wrong.
What the writer of the statement is doing, on a psychological level, is threatening our children. The implication here is that your child will fall sick and die with noone to care if the war continues. The writer is using fear to motivate a response, and that is the very definition of terrorism.
Logically speaking, the arguement isn’t even very sound. It occurs in a basic format known as the “If/then” statement. It is one of the foundations of all logical arguements, “If A then B.”
Taking a look at only the A section we see that it really occurs in two parts which consist of “spending in Iraq” and “America can’t afford health care for our children or infrastructure maintenance to keep our bridges from falling down.”
So obviously it’s a simple choice, Iraq and falling bridges and dying children or, none of that and a happy-go-lucky world where everyone smiles and has enough money left over at the end of the year for a trip to Disney world.
I find this case particularily disgusting because it is turning trade on a recent disaster and also echoing one of my other most hated political opportunist phrases, “Think of the children.”
There are good and solid reason for ending the war in Iraq, but lets not pretend that stopping the war will magically solve other problems. Stopping the war will only end the problem of being at war. Other problems, like our continuing dependence on foreign oil, a lack of children’s health care or a crumbling infrastructure are seperate issues that require their own solutions.