My idea is simple: just simply out-compete them in recruiting suicide bombers and terrorist cells.
Is the idea crazy or brilliant? I’m not sure, so I am humbly submitting this idea for SDMB think tank approval.
Assumptions:
The US would rather spend money than incur casualties
Casualties and injuries are obviously costly, but US policy already uses expensive ordinance or technology such as Predator drones to neutralize a target. If a target is neutralized in the end, does it matter if money was spent to bomb it or bribe it?
The CIA can do a better job of recruiting potential terrorists than Al-Qaeda
The pithy OP would have described “Crazy Ahmed’s Terrorist Recruitment Camp”, where the smart terrorist goes for a fast track to paradise. But obviously, we would need to build up a reputation so future terrorists will want to join over the existing Al-Qaeda network. Maybe a wag-the-dog campaign where a recruit joins up and succeeds in bombing a US city, complete with faked media coverage to demonstrate success? The CIA can pay the widow or mother as a show of tangible benefits… we pay more than they do.
We have a way to deal with those recruited
I’m thinking “training accident”. The recruit goes to the desert training camp and is given a “dummy” explosive vest to wear and given a trigger to hold. They are told to walk to the mock enemy checkpoint. They are unaware the vest is rigged for remote detonation and are “accidentally” killed. Such a tragedy. The family back home is told of the wild success of their brave little soldier.
Pros:
Zero friendly casualties
Potentially hasten the end of the war in Afghanistan and elsewhere
Cheaper than actual war
Everyone gets what they want: US gets fewer terrorists in the world, recruit gets to die and money be given to family
Cons:
Money doesn’t go to line the pockets of the profiteers in the military-industrial complex
I am assuming this was the goal of the Bush administration and that Obama is looking to end the war instead.
Potentially long term costs as idea takes off and large numbers are recruited. However, as a Ponzi scheme, this one has a workable payoff: once recruiting reaches levels where we cannot possibly pay, we delay payment as long as possible and make a final push to recruit large numbers. Then, when the illusion becomes untenable, burn the entire operation and start anew with “Crazy Hussein’s Terrorist Recruitment Camp”.
Unintended consequences. I’m sure someone will be along shortly to enumerate these.
Good point. The cynic would say the US govt does not have a very good track record of executing ideas. There are things the govt does well and they’re usually simple straightforward grunt tasks. But there have been successful complex tasks that are executed by a team of the “best and the brightest” put together with govt funding and national motivation. The moon shot, for example.
I am assuming the CIA gets full executive support (the Administration is motivated to succeed and on board with the idea) and resources are in place. But I honestly have no idea how easy or hard it is to actually recruit someone to be a terrorist.
Isn’t this basically what they *have * been doing in Iraq, and which in large part was credited for the (relative) success of the “surge”? As I understand it, we already have quite a few former/would-be (hopefully not “current”) terrorists on Uncle Sam’s dole, in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
On point number 1, re: bribing militants not to be militants, there are two problems. One is that the US would have to continue bribing the people not to be militants, otherwise they could simply choose to be militants again. Second, people with ideological motivations are not easily bribed. Think about it. How much would the OP want as a bribe to become an Al Qaeda terrorist? Is there any amount of money that the average American would take to become an Islamic extremist? If not, why is it assumed that an Islamic extremist would place profit over his philosophical and political beliefs?
On point number 2, the recruitment of individuals to become double-agent terrorists is immoral. It is essentially entrapment. To induce someone who is not already carrying out violence to become a terrorist so that they can be captured is a subtle form of genocide, not a clever means of war. If we are trying to find people who are already dangerous terrorists, then we should arrest or kill them, not enlist them.
And for number 3, to the extent that we identify terrorists, once again, we can arrest them or put a bullet in their heads. The idea that we’re going to have to go through this dog-and-pony show of taking them to special training camps to stage elaborate deadly accidents is just stupid.
In 2005, I delivered a brief to Gen John Abizaid on a subject similar to this. My thesis was essentially that there were two ways to defeat insurgency (not necessarily terrorism): pay them or kill them. It doesn’t have to be exactly those two things. For example, “pay them” could just mean that you give them some material support for their legit business operations (gravel delivery seemed to be popular) while “kill them” could be just imprisonment or the cutting off of their support structures.
The trick, I said, was to figure out who you could pay and who you should kill. What ensued was basically factors contributing to that, like social status, monetary connections, etc.
One of the main foci was that suicide bombers were much harder to bribe than guerrila fighters. The bombers tended to be more dedicated to the cause and needed the money less. You had to kill them, not pay them.
ETA: Don’t worry, Mods, none of the above is/was classified information.
Anyone that can be bribed INTO something most likely can be bribed OUT of it.
It reminds me of the time Oprah was in the tabloids and she said something like “I wish I knew who was selling them my information. 'Cause I have a lot more money than them and I can pay them to keep their mouth shut”
Many (not all) Afghans choose Taliban simply for lack of other job opportunities. Why weren’t they offered jobs helping build their country?
The Bush administration deliberately avoided hiring local workers or local companies for much of its reconstruction efforts. Indeed the collapse of Iraq infrastructure and social organization was applauded in so many words by some Bush advisors as the “creative destruction” that would help them reorganize Iraq around an “American” economic model.
One of the more interesting ideas I’ve heard of is a Saudi program for de-programming terrorists. The idea is to take suspected members of terrorist organizations who are in custody and put them in a program where they meet established moderate Imams who present religious counterarguments to the indoctrination the terrorists had received. They basically explain that blowing yourself and a bunch of other people up is not the true path of Islam.
It sounds like a good plan to me. These guys are already motivated by religion so they should be open to the idea of listening to religious authorities. They just need to get the idea of following a sane version of Islam rather than a crazy version.
Problem is that they will just refuse to listen to the sane imams …
Look, they are people of the Book, right? So theoretically you should be able to sit them down with the specific verses that state that what they are doing is wrong. They have read the words themselves yet they are still obviously interpreting it however they want. Same with fundy christians of all sects, and fundie jewish of all sects. The words are there, the problem lies in the interpretation of the words.
I am so white I look like Casper the Honkey Ghost. I could convert publically to islam with it broadcast all over the news in the middle east. If I put one little foot on the ground in many areas I am dead. It doesn’t matter that I am now islamic, the ineffible whiteness of my being and citizenship in the US is enough to make me their islamic equivalent to the Whore of Babylon. You pretty much can not reason with a fanatic.
I imagine that bribery and payoffs are frequently used, and that this is far from a new idea. When they don’t work, we see people being shot at with AK47s; when they do, we hear nothing.
Of course, idealism and fanaticism will often be immune to bribery.
What it sounds to me is the the OP is proposing that the CIA actually hire on would-be terrorists to be, well, terrorists for the CIA. At any rate, that’s what this sounds like to me:
Leaving aside all the other problems people have pointed out, this seems like an incredibly bad idea to me for a variety of reasons. First off, these terrorists are going to want to actually BE terrorists, and it seems like their expectations would be set for them to be terrorists. After a bit they are going to wonder why they aren’t going out and doing all that terrorist stuff, and some non-zero percentage of them are going to take the money and whatever training we give them and wander off to do their own thing. Secondly, does anyone really think it’s a good idea to give the CIA a large group of potential terrorists in their immediate pay? I mean, they seem to get into enough trouble as it is, let alone if they are going to be staging ‘fake’ terrorist attacks and actively recruiting terrorists. Seems like the potential for abuse and slippery slopes is nearly 100%…
So you propose to go out to random Middle Eastern towns and have the CIA say to people, “Psst… how’d you like to join the resistance? We’ll give tens of thousands of dollars to your family, all you have to do is sign right here and show up at the madrassa at 7am tomorrow.” And if they say yes, we kill them?
How do we know that the people we’d be recruiting are actual threats to us, rather than just looking for the bribes that you offered?