From Russia With Love

I've been thinking quite hard for some time now on the question of terrorism and how best to counter it, and now I am convinced that I have the answer, though many people won't like it.

Of course, the only counter in the long term is education and prosperity. If a region becomes rich enough, all of a sudden the people living in it become more interested in life and less interested in blowing themselves up or kidnapping foreigners, and if a region becomes educated enough the (almost always religious) ideologies that push people into such attacks become contested.

However, in order to build education and prosperity, terrorism and counter-progressive insurgencies must be temporarily paralyzed, which means that a short term counter is also needed in order to effectively combat it.

What short term policies work? In my view, it's quite simple: leniency begets further attacks. In the West and in other developed nations cherish our ideas of fundamental human rights and they work extremely well when dealing with 99+% of the world. But when facing terrorism, the only proper response (by a utilitarian value judgment, whereby quick resolution of the crisis, however costly, is preferable to dragging on the conflict indefinitely) is out-right brutality. They are not our friends, and they could be our friends if they so chose. But they chose to be our enemies, and to hurt our friends. In the name of those who wish to abide by the rules of civilization, we must eliminate them.

First thing: however much I admire the IDF, I must criticize them on one thing: their willingness to exchange live terrorists for the bodies of Israeli soldiers. Bodies? Who gives a fuck about bodies? They're DEAD, they're no happier here than they were over there, they can't help us. Let the assholes keep the bodies and we'll keep their asshole buddies locked up. I'll give you a fair trade: bodies for bodies. Israeli policy ought to be extremely hard-line on this issue: every ambush brings a reprisal killing. One dead soldier = 5 dead terrorists in prison. In exchange, Israel ought to also stop building its bullshit and highly destructive settlements throughout the West Bank and leave particularly nasty places such as Hebron. Hell, I'd be all for the IDF to just leave Hebron without warning, let the asshole settlers (who all but worship Baruch Goldstein, this guy who machine-gunned a mosque and killed anywhere from 25 to 50 Arabs and wounded 100 more) deal directly with the Arabs they've terrorized for years.

As for how the US should to respond to a terrorist attack? I'll let the following true story serve as a guide:

In the 1980's Lebanon was occupied by several foreign militaries and an ongoing series of hostages from various nations were being taken. Most countries dealt with the hostage crises the 'normal' way: they talked, cajoled, and offered to free prisoners of radical groups they'd taken in exchange. However, one very different case occurred in 1985...

In 1985 four Soviet diplomats were abducted and one was killed. The abductors demanded that the USSR put pressure on Syria to stop supporting a rival militant group. The Soviets, however, had other plans. They sent Alpha Group, a special forces team, to Lebanon. Using their excellent human intelligence (a la KGB) they identified the families of the kidnappers and took them hostage in return. Normally, a country would then begin negotiating for the hostages' release; not Russia. Russia wanted to make the point clear - one of theirs had been killed, hostile action had been taken against them, and the perpetrators would pay dearly for it. They cut off the fingers of one of the family members of the hostage-takers and mailed it to them - "Dear Hostage Takers, kindly return our people otherwise you'll get more of yours back like this, Sincerely, From Russia, With Love". The three remaining hostages were returned pronto, no Soviets were kidnapped ever again in the Middle East, and no Russians were either until 2004.

This is not something to be gloated over, I'll have to say, despite my urge to the contrary. We should use these tactics as sparingly as we can, since their harshness gives them a low utilitarian value a priori, meaning the results will have to be extra good to make up for it. However, looking at it coldbloodedly (and that's the only way to look at things with consequences as grave as this) who achieved the better result, the West or the Soviet Union? Even from humanitarian terms, the Soviets outdid the United States, since the weaker actions of the US made the terrorists feel fine about kidnapping more people and mistreating them for years. One person with missing fingers is a lot of pain, but not very much when compared with dozens of people held captive, tortured, and killed like the American response has resulted in.

Am I suggesting tearing into every terrorist's household? Maybe, but the main point I want to convey is "whatever works", which incidentally is my motto for life. And whatever the Russians did worked, and what the Israelis are doing isn't.