Kinsley explained that U.S. terrorist attacks on civilian targets are justified if they satisfy pragmatic criteria: a “sensible policy [should] meet the test of cost-benefit analysis,” an analysis of “the amount of blood and misery that will be poured in, and the likelihood that democracy will emerge at the other end”26—“democracy” as U.S. elites determine its shape. Kinsley’s thoughts elicited no public comment; to my knowledge, they were apparently deemed acceptable.
