Edgewise, your link describes a grand strategy of isolating the enemy morally, mentally and physically, from their external/reference environment, which essentially imposes insanity on them, which then causes a destructive cycle of internal dialogues, which then eventually causes dissolution and defeat. That’s what it says.
Okay, but how would all that have applied to the KSM case? KSM boasted to his captors of his knowledge of another coming attack, and when asked about it, he taunted, “You’ll see.”
What to do? Waterboard KSM to obtain information that would preserve thousands of innocent lives? Or isolate him morally mentally and physically until the resulting “insanity” causes him eventually to admit defeat (meanwhile Los Angeles goes up in smoke)?
Next John Robb, in the link, says that, while weakening connections of terrorists, the U.S. should be doing the opposite of strengthening its connections to its own referents by abiding by standards of conduct we profess to uhold, i.e., don’t torture. By not upholding these standards, we set up internal opposition which then ruins everything we’re trying to accomplish. IOW, we shouldn’t be hypocrites. Okay fine. Let’s let innocent people die so that we won’t be open to charges of hypocrisy. Can this really be what we call moral?
John Robb’s “grand strategy” may be great in a broadly general kind of way but in regard to it’s applicability to the singular particularity of the KSM case, it sounds more like a bunch of useless gobbledegook to me.
I get no pleasure at all from thinking about the suffering of anybody, even a vile creature like KSM, so if there were an equally effective way of dealing with cases like this and with these killers who delight in killing, I’d be all for it.
If we had never touched KSM, because we’re too moral to do so, if we had allowed him to keep his little secret and the LA attack had proceeded as planned, I think Satan himself would have been pleased as punch with all the death and destruction. But then, I think our society has cultivated a lot of sympathy for the devil over the last 40-50 years.
I also find it rather odd that a society so in love with the concept of nuance and shades of gray suddenly can find no room for anything but a rigid absolute.
