One Innocent Person is Killed. Response: Kill More Innocent People

So what is your recommendation for the Yazidis and Christians in Iraq ?They are also being beheaded.

I understand the impulse to massively want to “see them pay” in response to some outrage.

I *don’t* understand committing that momentary sentiment to the public eye.

I had thought the acceptability of wiping out a town or village in reprisal for a single killing had become somewhat tarnished by its association with a previous regime.

@Rboggs,
So what is your recommendation for the Yazidis and Christians in Iraq ?They are also being beheaded.
Even if I didn’t have a good solution, that shouldn’t prevent me, or you, from criticizing really bad solutions. Remember that the impetus for this proposal is Glenn Reynolds’s justified outrage against the murder of an innocent. He should not forget that outrage, or the basis for it, in judging solutions. He apparently did.
I do have one possible solution, though: announce to them that they will be let in to the United States forever.
@Tom West,
I understand the impulse to massively want to “see them pay” in response to some outrage.
Ditto.
I *don’t* understand committing that momentary sentiment to the public eye.
Ditto. I wonder if he already regrets it.
I had thought the acceptability of wiping out a town or village in reprisal for a single killing had become somewhat tarnished by its association with a previous regime.
Well put.

rboggs,

Glen Reynold’s recommendation would be to drop a MOAB on those Christians. Do you think in absence of another recommendation that is how the US should proceed?

However, there are many people in this country claiming that the lives of those and other innocent victims are hugely important to them. Perhaps raising money to ransom them would help. That is a policy that the US government uses on nonterrorist domestic kidnappers, in part because it makes it easier to apprehend the kidnappers once separated from the hostages. Given the cost of any intervention, I doubt this expence of separating ISIS from its still living victims would be financially significant.

Just to play a little (literal) devil’s advocate, but can you really say that anyone left alive in an ISIS controlled town is innocent at this point?

I *don’t* understand committing that momentary sentiment to the public eye.

A certain amount of strategic uncertainty can be valuable in many long run competitive situations. For example, a labor union will threaten to go on strike (even though it might be more damaging than accepting whatever management is offering) because if it always acts rationally, management will be able to offer just slightly more than the employees could obtain elsewhere and the union will accept it. Unfortunately, for the strategy to work, the union has to actually be willing to strike or else management will always call their bluff.

Similarly, there is something to be said for threatening war. Making threats to take self-defeating actions (and sometimes following through on them) can yield better results in the long run.

Note that this might also explain some of the Krugman article posted earlier. Any particular war, like any particular union work stoppage, probably leaves the participants worse off than if it had not happened. But over the long run, the threat of a work stoppage gives the union more leverage and it might get enough gains in other negotiating sessions to outweigh the losses from the times it has to go on strike. Maybe threatening war works the same way – a credible threat to take destructive actions can lead to a better negotiated settlement for the belligerent in other disputes that do not result in a war.

@Granite26,
Just to play a little (literal) devil’s advocate, but can you really say that anyone left alive in an ISIS controlled town is innocent at this point?
rowbigred26 answered your question well, but beyond that, yes, I would bet that there are scores of innocent people left alive. How many children under age 10, for example, do you think there would be in such a village?
@Don Boudreaux,
It is precisely because David is so very familiar with the concept “war” that he writes as eloquently and as humanely as he does on this topic – refusing to accept without questioning the habit of lumping people into groups and assuming that those groups are themselves unified, sentient actors.
Thanks.
@konshtok,
it’s called “war” and y’all should be more familiar with the concept
Actually, I’m pretty familiar with the concept. I’ve been teaching warriors for 30 years and have written about it a lot. BTW, konshtok, I think that if the ISIS people spoke English with a southern drawl, they would, in addressing the issue of the innocent journalist killed, answer Glenn Reynolds’s outrage about the way you did. And it would not be to their credit.

I don’t know about this specific case, but there are a few other things to consider when dealing with situations like this:

1. Muslim nations are very much honor based. They plan, act, and respond to events within the framework of honor and shame.

2. It is always more honorable–not just for Muslims but for anyone–to be defeated by an adversary that is truly, undeniably superior.

3. It is especially shameful to be defeated by an adversary who is militarily superior but wears oven mitts during the conflict, and then turns around afterwards and apologizes for their victory. The only way to overcome this shame is to continue to fight, and in this case, there is no shame in fighting dirty.

So, is it wrong to respond to one murder by destroying an entire town? Probably yes, in most cases. But if that murder is part of a larger conflict in which the murderer(s?) comes from an honor culture, I am contending that such a response may, in some cases, actually be the most honorable thing to do, and may do the most to contribute towards ending that larger conflict permanently.

War is a form of diplomacy. A retaliatory strike would therefore count as a form of communication. The Islamic State is clearly not amenable to traditional forms of diplomacy, but violence is a language they speak well. If we had the political will to follow through with such retaliations, they would most likely respond. The Russians, for example, have used such a strategy with reasonable success. Unfortunately, we lack the political will to have any sort of proactive strategy.

It is a bit disappointing that an economist is focused on surface-level morality and ignores the effect of incentives on behavior. Moral posturing is fine for status signaling, but it does not incentivize good behavior.

@Richard O. Hammer,
All good thoughts. You missed another: stop interfering in their countries.

I *don’t* understand committing that momentary sentiment to the public eye.

Weird; I was just about to point out the opposite. “We don’t punish evil if it takes enough hostages” might be a decent policy to hold but it’s obviously an awful policy to announce.

Newcomb’s paradox at first seems to be of limited practicality, since it postulates a player who’s superhuman enough to reliably predict opponent(s) strategy in advance. But, you take a look around the real world and you see people metaphorically shouting “I’d take both boxes! Both boxes!” and suddenly the postulates seem a bit more plausible.

Neco eos omnes; Deus suos agnoscit.

They understand one thing and they’re all in it together….

Oderint dum metuant.

@NZ,
I apologize for being snarky
Apology accepted.
But you missed the point. Richard was addressing the question asked by an earlier commenter about what to do about people who are presumably innocent. My guess is that he, like me, would have some filter for keeping out killers.

David
There is no perfect solution to the problem of evil. As Burke said “For evil to win all is required for good men to do nothing”. If you pick up a sword and slay the evil you will forever be changed. Can you put down the sword and like Cincinnatus take up the pursuit of peace. You will no longer be pure, wise and virtuous. Many people will not do anything until it happens to them and that is to late. Can you stand at the border and see men, women and children killed and say I will do anything
for that would be interfering in another country. What will you do?
vikingvista,
Raising money to ransom hostages will result in a growing business in taking hostages. The Angle-Saxons learned that giving gold to the Danes resulted in more Danes demanding more gold. Same thing will happen here. It’s called danegeld.
Mr. Econotarian,
Liberalize US immigration policy? If the Yazidis can get on a boat, get to Matamoros, cross the Rio Grand to Brownsville, claim to be a tribe from Honduras, they are in. Can’t get more liberal then that.

David.
I read your blog every day and enjoy it very much.

Once you commit to war you know your actions will mean the death of some innocents. However, there is still a massive moral difference between targeting the innocent and accepting that despite one’s best efforts innocents will suffer.

When fighting an ideology that claims moral superiority, one must establish one’s own moral superiority. We won’t convert hardcore ISIS, but if we combine moral behavior with inflicting harm on ISIS, over time those who have joined ISIS out of a sense of adventure and participating in “jihad” will feel they can surrender without fear of beheading. At the same time, more and more Muslims will reject ISIS and no longer fund it, and may even support us with the intelligence we need to further degrade the enemy.

On a purely tactical level, ISIS apparently doesn’t field mass formations or form static lines but rather uses swarming by relatively small units. This means MOABs and B52 carpet-bombing runs are unlikely to be useful. Fighting ISIS seems to call more for A-10 Warthogs, Apache gunships, and armed drones, all under the direction of small teams of special forces accompanying equally mobile commandos (in the Boer sense) of local troops.

Ever notice that Russians are never kidnapped in the Middle East? ever wonder why? in 1986, Hezbollah kidnapped 4 Soviet diplomats and threatened to kill them unless the USSR ceased backing Syria in Lebanon. then, one Russian was killed, with his body left in a park. the Soviets said nothing. they sent in KGB teams, kidnapped a number of male relatives of Hezbollah, and killed them, with their genitals deposited in their mouths. The KGB then advised that they could get many more male relatives. the three surviving diplomats were soon released. no more Soviet/Russian kidnappings since them.
watch and learn.

it’s called “war” and y’all should be more familiar with the concept

I’m very familiar with the concept war as it’s described in the Constitution. Congress declares war. Then we’re at war.

As Burke said “For evil to win all is required for good men to do nothing”.

I can do you better (in great lines of all time):

Kent Brockman: Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it’s time for our viewers to crack each other’s heads open and feast on the goo inside?

Professor: Yes I would, Kent.

@ rowbigred

You are being deliberately obtuse. Negative reinforcement is a well proven psychological tool. If you believe the Islamic State would not respond to those types of incentives then I would like to know why.

While it is clear that hope is not a plan it does not mean that overwhelming retaliation is our only alternative. My preferred approach would be disengagement. Let them kill each other and stay out of it. As part of that it would be necessary to restrict visas and refugee resettlement. This is also not politically palatable.

@rowbigred26,
I don’t, however, kick the dog when my child lies.
Nicely put.

@ rowbigred

“Have you tried kill all the poor?”

Morality is rarely a black and white issue. If we make it our policy to “do no evil” then we can easily find ourselves in the situation where we allow evil to be done. For example, I stated in my second comment that I would prefer a policy of disengagement. This would require us to turn a blind eye toward the Islamic State eliminating their religious minorities, like the Yezidis.

Let’s not pretend there are easy answers. Directly opposing the Islamic State results in innocent deaths due to airstrikes, beheading of journalists, etc. Not opposing the Islamic State results in innocent deaths as explained above. We can argue which is the lesser evil, but there is no perfect solution.

Just to play a little (literal) devil’s advocate, but can you really say that anyone left alive in an ISIS controlled town is innocent at this point?

The fact that this question is being asked by what appears to be a rational individual is disturbing. Of course there are many innocent people who had nothing to do with ANY of the violence that has taken place and the murder in particular. When we turn ordinary people into cartoon characters just so that we can feel better about our crimes against them we really need to be concerned about our own character and our principles.

The design goal of terrorism is to provoke overreaction in the target.

This being said, violence – potentially massive violence – is clearly on the table.

So there’s this sort of Bootleggers and Baptists thing between the terrorists and the Neocons…

We are forgetting a few alternative options and a few other lessons of history. See first Sherman, in the US Civil War. He realized something fundamental – government institutions may wage war, but intellectual leaders and their supporters drive and maintain the motive and will to fight.

Contra Mark Bahner above, the ultimate danger is not just foreign governments. It is those who support those governments with intellectual ammunition and motivation to continue the fight – those include opinion and cultural leaders who may themselves never pick up a gun or wear a uniform (and, yes, those well-fed pundits mentioned above fit in that category nicely).

Sherman realized that the fight would continue so long as the Union forces merely went after the opposing army. So, he took the war to allegedly “innocent civilians” pushing their brethren to fight… by burning their homes and farms, and destroying their wealth. The US Civil War was over in 6 months thanks to Sherman.

Remember, too, that Sherman did not indiscriminately “target civilians” or otherwise wantonly kill those outside the opposing military. He simply made the costs of war apparent and felt to those who otherwise could support it without penalty. On this count, the number of truly innocent bystanders in war is remarkably few.

@Mark Bahner

“What is the danger to U.S. citizens here in the U.S.? It is foreign governments.” What about non-state, non-governmental actors. They have certainly demonstrated their ability to endanger ( and kill) US citizens.

1) Suppose, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, Congress had debated and decided not to declare war on Japan. Would we have been at war with Japan, even though Congress debated the matter, and decided not to declare war on Japan?
— Yep, we’d still be at war. Per your logic, some country to ride roughshod across the US, taking territory and killing people, but as long as Congress-critters don’t vote to declare war, it’s not war. Not sure what you’d call it, if you asked the people losing their friends, family, and land, they’d tell you it was war, whatever the vote in the House.

2) Suppose some people from Canada blow up the Chrysler building…or the Capitol. Are we at then at war with Canada? We’d be at war with whomever funded, helped, and/or sanctioned whomever committed the act against our national interests.

War existed long before the Constitution, and being at war (in reality, not the pedantic legalese world you choose to inhabit) happens independent of the vote of 535 people.

One country, or a group of non-state actors, don’t need the consent (vote of Congress) to commit and Act of War against the US or to engage in a sustained violent campaign against our interests.

I’ve looked through the previous comments, and I think all of them easily fit into one of the two choices I listed. I may disagree on the details of implementation, but the broad outline of disengagement or retaliation is there.

This reminds me of the attitude of The West Wing and many movies. The attitude is that the U.S. military (and the president) are somehow authorized to perform “retaliation.”

We’ve got a Department of Defense (formerly the War Department).

If Congress determines that there is a threat sufficient to declare war, that’s what the Constitution gives them the power to do. Then, the Constitution gives the president the power to wage that war. There’s nothing that gives the President the power to “retaliate” against some crime committed against a U.S. citizen or citizens anywhere in the world.

So there aren’t just two choices. There’s also a choice to follow the law or not to follow the law. (Unfortunately, U.S. presidents routinely choose not to follow the law, and neither the Congress or the people really care.)

Reynolds is simply expressing the Jacksonian tradition in American foreign policy.

By almost any measure, the vast majority of Americans are Jacksonians. Which of course has no effect whatsoever on the longstanding tradition of a self-important (and self-appointed) small minority to attack Jacksonians as their moral inferiors.

Per your logic, some country to ride roughshod across the US, taking territory and killing people, but as long as Congress-critters don’t vote to declare war, it’s not war.

Some questions:

1) Doesn’t it seem ridiculously implausible to you that any country on this particular earth will “ride roughshod across the US, taking territory and killing people”?

2) And even if that ridiculously implausible event were to occur, don’t you think it would be ridiculously implausibly squared that Congress would not vote to declare war?

3) You obviously have little respect for “Congress-critters”…but therefore you have more respect for a single man or woman (i.e., a president)? A man or woman who may not even be facing election ever again?

The point I was (hyperbolically) making is that in most ISIS controlled towns, a large amount of the populace welcomed them with open arms as an alternative to… whatever… to the extent of tacitly supporting the great evils ISIS was committing, including mass murder of their neighbors.

How do you know that “..in most ISIS controlled towns, a large amount of the populace welcomed them with open arms…”?

To start with, I don’t think any non-Sunnis would welcome them. I doubt most women would welcome them. So that would probably be a majority already.

The thing is, when a group that is known to be incredibly violent takes over a town, it makes sense to “smile and grin at the change all around,” in the immortal words of Roger Daltrey.

Even suppose that you’re a guy with a wife and kids, and ISIS comes to your neighbors’ house and kills them all. What are you going to do?