Responding to Mumbai

Experts and media commentators are still determining the identity and affiliations of the terrorists behind the attacks on Mumbai. It's early, but I don't believe the perpetrators a directing their attacks exclusively against Hinduism, as has been true in previous terrorist incidents in India.

I'll have updates on this, but for now I simply want to note Matthew Yglesias' knee-jerk reaction against the use of force in combating the violence. In particular, Yglesias argues that India's violence should not occasion a reappraisal of the doctrine of preemption, which saw its most monumental use in the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq:

A lot of basically sensible people, including folks like these and these who may well find themselves with positions in the Obama administration, have suggested that maybe we don’t want to throw the alleged baby of preventive war out with the bathwater of Bushism. I always think people thinking along these lines need to keep in mind that the United States isn’t the only country on the planet. I don’t think we want a world in which India claims to have a U.S.-endorsed right to launch preventive military strikes on Pakistan, or a world in which Pakistani policymaking is dominated by fear of a potentially imminent preventive Indian military attack.

Government officials are still working to resolve the crisis on the ground, and we see Ygelias - the preeminent spokesman for pacifism in Democratic Party foreign policy - already ruling out the use of force as a potential policy in responding to this round of terrorism.