Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson solves the ISIS situation

[Mark6]

A bit off topic

Death sentences and crime are not comparable to terrorism and killing terrorists. In regards to crime, the primary dissuasive factor is the chance of getting caught, the severity of punishment is secondary. The death penalty makes no difference to the former calculation, and is rare enough that it probably does little to affect the calculation of the latter. Seriously, what percentage of criminals actually get executed? It's a negligible percentage in the US.

Anecdotally, in Brezhnev era Soviet Union threat of death penalty did have effect on the crime. Specifically, nobody was ever executed for ONE murder (typical sentence was 12 years), but 2 or more murders resulted in a firing squad, and fast - no endless appeals. Consequently, murderers in prison were very unwilling to kill another prisoner, as they knew that would be the end of them.

 

[Ladewig]

I agree with this, but it does not lead me to think that I'm wrong. It is, in fact, part of what makes me think I'm right. The whole "you'll just make more terrorists" is not a conclusion drawn from any deep analysis of what motivates terrorists. It's a facile response to an assumed logic, a form of mirroring. It's not that terrorists are illogical, though, it's that they value fundamentally different things than we do and view the world in a very different way as well. But within the context of those very alien values and world view, they're still going to act logically. They will try to advance their own interests, just like everyone does. In this sense, they aren't any different.

I find your post so confusing that I am starting to think that I do not understand the position you are advocating, so I am going to have to ask for clarification.

Are you asserting that if the US kills enough anti-US terrorists, then interest in becoming an anti-US terrorist will decline? And that this decline will be the result of people concluding that anti-US terrorism no longer advances their own interests? And that people will arrive at this conclusion (I.e. Stop trying to kill Americans) by evaluating the situation in a logical and rational manner?

 

[Ziggurat]

Do you think that distinction matters much to someone's whose wife, husband, brother, sister, son, daughter was killed in an air strike? They're burying a loved one who was killed by a U.S. strike. They're going to feel grief and anger. That anger and grief is not going to be assuaged by, "Well, the U.S. didn't mean to kill your family member. That relative of yours just got unlucky."

The distinction matters because, as I said, there is no immutable relationship between the number of terrorists killed and the amount of collateral damage. If we kill, say, 100 innocent civilians for every terrorist we kill, then we can expect different results than if we kill, say, 1 innocent civilian for every 100 terrorists we kill. And we can draw that conclusion most easily with the assumption that the response to each collateral death is exactly the same, so what you're saying doesn't refute my point, it actually supports it. Collateral damage is a bad thing for multiple reasons, but it is still not the same as killing terrorists, and conflating the two is illogical.

 

[Ziggurat]

Are you asserting that if the US kills enough anti-US terrorists, then interest in becoming an anti-US terrorist will decline? And that this decline will be the result of people concluding that anti-US terrorism no longer advances their own interests? And that people will arrive at this conclusion (I.e. Stop trying to kill Americans) by evaluating the situation in a logical and rational manner?

Yes, but there is also the important additional advantage to killing terrorists that some people already interested in anti-US terrorism will now be dead, and so unable to commit further acts of terrorism.

Note also that not everyone needs to make this rational choice in order for the strategy to help.

 

[Corsair 115]

Allied bomber crews suffered a lot of casualties. Death by civilians was surely on the short list of risk factors, and probably given little consideration when planning missions..

I never said it was a major cause of crew casualties. I offered it as an example that the German public was hardly indifferent to the bombing. There was some anger towards the air crews, and from time to time that anger was unleashed upon those who had to bail out over German territory.

The distinction matters because, as I said, there is no immutable relationship between the number of terrorists killed and the amount of collateral damage. If we kill, say, 100 innocent civilians for every terrorist we kill, then we can expect different results than if we kill, say, 1 innocent civilian for every 100 terrorists we kill.

That in no way lessens what was the main point: that every instance of 'collateral damage' can be used as a recruiting tool by various extremist organizations.