"Today's problems cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we created them" - Albert Einstein

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Death Row Kamikazes

Suicide bombers will always have tactical advantage since traditional deterrents, e.g. shooting them, do not work since they are already committing to 'martyr' themselves in their attack. Further, it has proven difficult for us to get our hands on high-profile terrorists like Usama they understand and exploit what deterrents work against us, e.g. shooting our soldiers before they get too close, like the SEAL team we lost in Afghanistan, ostensibly because Usama travels with a huge bodyguard of soldiers.

To fight fire with fire, what if we gave an option to death row inmates who have exhausted all appeals and/or have admitted guilt - they can either die at the hands of the state, or they can redeem themselves to their society by going on a suicide mission targeting terrorists.

Suicide attackers will be able to get much closer to targets and do things we cannot currently do with our soldiers and intelligence agents due the high risk involved; things like get close enough to assasinate Usama without the agent or soldier getting killed in return. It would also be another powerful psychological weapon to employ - terrorists already have to worry about having a US laser-guided bomb dropped on their heads or being rushed by special forces any time, any where, why not make them experience the same fear they exploit of having to wonder if any of the people around them are about to blow themselves up.

Of course there are practical concerns such as how do you ensure the convict carries out the mission and does not just disappear (though potentially easily addressed through some version of tracking technology already used for persons under house arrest), but on a philosophic and moral level, is something like this consistent with our values? Would a program like this be wrong?

1 Comments:

Blogger francois said...

I'm with you. Whatever it takes to win. This country has never considered it's moral values a suicide pact, and we shouldn't start today.

11:52 PM

 

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