# Easier way to defeat terrorists with zero US casaulties? Bribe 'em! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 9, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106 "2010-07-09T16:17:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/21 "2010-07-09T23:17:28Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > 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? Maybe a less blantant approach has a better chance of success? When a suicide bomber dies, go to their family and start paying them every week. New recruits will seek out your representative, who will point them to Crazy Ahmed’s Terrorist Training Camp to sign up. At that point someone on our side will ask them why they are there, and presumably they will say they want to kill the heretic Westerners. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/22 "2010-07-09T23:29:47Z")
The USA pays the militia’s in Iraq $millions each month - Petraeus bought them off. This is exactly the tactic already used. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/23 "2010-07-09T23:47:58Z")
> [@The\_Controvert](#): > > My idea is simple: just simply out-compete them in recruiting suicide bombers and terrorist cells. > > \ > > 1. 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. > > 2. 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. > > \ I don’t see where the bribery is comes in here. (or do you _seriously_ think suicide bombers are in it for the money?) The idea appears to be to entrap people who might possibly be persuaded to become terrorists into actually agreeing to become terrorists, and then kill them. If you were looking for a way to unambiguously make “us” morally worse, much worse, than the actual terrorists, then I think you have found it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/24 "2010-07-10T01:07:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Problem is that they will just refuse to listen to the sane imams … I’m figuring the Imam who’s telling you Allah’s will is for you to go home, get a regular job, settle down with a nice Muslim girl and have some kids, and live a good long life is going to have a major advantage in persuasivness over the Iman who’s telling you it’s Allah’s will that you strap bombs to your chest. > [@](#): > > But less than simply putting a bullet into their heads. One of the advantages of this plan is you don’t have to worry much about whether you’re detainees are real terrorists or potential terrorists or non-terrorists who were in the wrong place. The worst case scenario is that you send a few innocent people through a refresher course on Islam 101. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/25 "2010-07-10T02:05:29Z")
Bribery can work - but not with fanatics. In Iraq, there were several groups of people involved in the insurgency: (1) the highly motivated religious nutbars. The ones who traveled from other countries to kill Americans. Al Qaida in Iraq. Religious fundamentalists. (2) Criminals who used the violence and chaos to their advantage. (3) Opportunists who joined whatever side was ‘winning’ in an attempt to profit from the spoils of war or to secure a decent position after the war is over. (4) People just trying to keep their heads down and survive, who will gravitate towards the side least likely to kill them. Some of these people joined the insurgency after a, "join us or die’ campaign. Group (1) can’t be bought off. These are people ready to die for their cause. It’s pretty tough to bribe someone who’s ready to strap a bomb to his chest and blow himself up. All you can do with such people is kill them or jail them. Group (2) can be bought off, but they’re unreliable. They’re likely to take your money and then do whatever they please anyway. Group (3) is the prime target for a bribery campaign. They’re looking for opportunity and profit. If you can convince them that their future livelihood depends on you, they’ll fall into line. They might even become cheerleaders for you. It depends how much they feel they have to gain. Group (4) can’t be bought off, unless they feel that their safety is assured. No one wants to take a payment from Americans only to be killed as a traitor once the Americans leave. The key to the success of a payment campaign is that it has to go hand-in-hand with security and progress that indicates the country will eventually return to rule of law. It also works when the bribery money comes in the form of infrastructure or business loans and grants, or reconstruction of destroyed buildings. The idea is to speed up the rebuilding of a middle class so that the people have something to protect. That gives them an incentive to help you put down the insurgency. Almost none of these conditions apply to Afghanistan, except for perhaps bribing warlords to prevent them from joining the Taliban. But there have already been numerous cases of warlords who _were_ bought off, but flipped sides again as soon as the Americans looked like they might not protect them. The key problems in Afghanistan are that there’s no middle class to build up, no way to establish permanent rule of law, and no real promise for a future for the people that looks any better than the present, at least in the next ten or twenty years. Under those conditions, I’m worried that any counterinsurgency program would have only temporary success no matter how many people you buy off. That’s why I’ve always said that Afghanistan is going to wind up needing a relatively permanent occupation by the U.S. in a peacekeeping role, with side missions to wipe out terrorist cells and prevent the country from being used as a big training camp for bad guys. I simply don’t see a path to the kind of stabilization followed by withdrawal that looks likely in Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/26 "2010-07-10T02:11:44Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > 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. I’m skeptical of this, and I think it displays a rather paternalistic attitude towards other people’s beliefs. What do you think would be the success rate of a program that took Christians and locked them in a room with Muslim Clerics to be converted to Islam? How about a program that converts Mormons to Judaism? Or maybe one that takes fundamentalist Quakers or Hutterites and tries to turn them into 7th day Adventists? > [@](#): > > 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. I suspect that someone who is ready to strap a bomb to his chest for Allah is going to require a little more than a stern talking to, even by a Cleric. I think this is probably a cynical revolving-door program the Saudis have cooked up for PR reasons. I’d like the see the recidivism rate for the ‘graduates’ of this program. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/27 "2010-07-10T02:29:25Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m skeptical of this, and I think it displays a rather paternalistic attitude towards other people’s beliefs. > > What do you think would be the success rate of a program that took Christians and locked them in a room with Muslim Clerics to be converted to Islam? How about a program that converts Mormons to Judaism? Or maybe one that takes fundamentalist Quakers or Hutterites and tries to turn them into 7th day Adventists? Probably close to zero which is why it’s a good idea this program is completely different from that. This program - as I clearly stated - is not trying to change anyone’s religion. It’s Muslims talking to other Muslims about Islam. It’s the equivalent of a Catholic Priest talking to some Catholic who’s been persuaded that blowing up abortion clinics is God’s will. The Catholic priest can explain to the guy that killing people is not part of real Catholicism. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/28 "2010-07-10T02:33:45Z")
No, it’s more like taking a Quaker or Hutterite and turning them into a 7th Day Adventist. Which is one of the examples I used. You want to brainwash the fundamentalism out of them and create a more moderate, modern person. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/29 "2010-07-10T02:40:40Z")
We do that. It costs $10 a day per insurgent to take an ex-insurgent and turn them into a guard who hunts for bombs or fights Al Qaeda for you. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17899543](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17899543) > [@](#): > > Once Insurgents, Now Allies > > If it wasn’t just the surge, how did it happen? > > It could be, in part, exhaustion among Sunnis, tired of fighting and dying. Or also, in part, a cease-fire declared by the largest Shiite militia, others say. > > But another part, and possibly the most significant, can be traced to the end of last May. That month, 126 U.S. troops died; it was the second deadliest month for U.S. forces during the war. Petraeus was under pressure to reduce those casualties. > > “Petraeus seems to have concluded that it was essential to cut deals with the Sunni insurgents if he was going to succeed in reducing U.S. casualties,” Macgregor says. > > The military now calls those “deals” the Concerned Local Citizens program or simply, CLCs. > > It’s a somewhat abstract euphemism. The CLC program turns groups of former insurgents, including fighters for al-Qaida in Iraq, into paid, temporary allies of the U.S. military. > > McCaffrey just got back from a five-day trip to Iraq where, he says, he “went to a couple of these CLCs, you know, five awkward-looking guys with their own AKs standing at a road junction with two magazines of ammunition — and they’re there as early warning to protect their families in that village. I think that that’s good.” > > Creating a New Force > > **Some 70,000 former insurgents are now being paid $10 a day by the U.S. military. It costs about a quarter billion dollars a year.** > > It’s a controversial strategy, and Macgregor warns that it’s creating a parallel military force in Iraq that is made up almost entirely of Sunni Muslims. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/30 "2010-07-10T02:43:21Z")
Also as a footnote Al Qaeda started as a group of terrorists recruited by the CIA (and Pakistans ISI) to fight the USSR. So again, the idea has been tried. And as long as there isn’t blowback, and you don’t run the risk of training someone just to have them turn on you it works fairly well. > **[Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden)** > > Several sources have alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ties with Osama bin Laden's faction of "Afghan Arab" fighters when it armed Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War. > About the same time as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the United States began collaborating with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to provide several hundred million dollars a year in aid to the Afghan Mujahideen insurgents fighting the Afghan pro-Soviet g... ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/31 "2010-07-10T02:46:21Z")
> [@pinkyvee](#): > > One of your assumptions is very flimsy. > What makes you think CIA recruitment would be all that effective? Company picnics, matching 401ks, rec rooms with pool tables and plasma TVs? Who wouldn’t join. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/32 "2010-07-10T03:06:37Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Also as a footnote Al Qaeda started as a group of terrorists recruited by the CIA (and Pakistans ISI) to fight the USSR. I think the implication in this statement is misleading. It is not as though Afghans and others were not fighting the USSR before the CIA and ISI became involved. We did not recruit them, they were already there. We gave them better weapons. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/33 "2010-07-10T03:54:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > 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. While I think that’s an excellent idea and well worth plenty of support, there is one flaw in it: assuming that the people you’re dealing with will respond to reason. Reason only works on reasonable people. Religion in general is pretty much the opposite of reason. Extremists do not generally stop being extremists, they tend to just find something else to be extreme about. You’d have better luck turning an Islamic extremist into a Christian extremist than into a moderate and reasonable person. I’m not saying it never works, but it ain’t easy. The problem with this entire premise (bribing terrorists to stop being terrorists) is that bribery only works on rational people. You can’t bribe a paranoid schizophrenic to stop believing their delusions, and if you offered a conspiracy theorist bribes to stop spreading pernicious bullshit the only thing you’d achieve is to further convince them of the truth of their belief system. You can’t bribe a true believer to convert, though it’ll work just fine on fellow-travellers. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/34 "2010-07-10T03:55:27Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > (1) the highly motivated religious nutbars. The ones who traveled from other countries to kill Americans. Al Qaida in Iraq. Religious fundamentalists. > [snip] > Group (1) can’t be bought off. These are people ready to die for their cause. It’s pretty tough to bribe someone who’s ready to strap a bomb to his chest and blow himself up. All you can do with such people is kill them or jail them. So why not help these fine folks along in their quest to shuffle off the mortal coil? Setup enough fake recruitment places and the nutbars seeking 70 virgins in the afterlife will join up and promptly get killed off, thereby solving the problem with no friendly casualties. If enough of the hardcore nutbars are removed, the remaining people won’t be willing to be suicide bombers, problem solved. Declare victory and go home. If the nutbars don’t want money, that’s okay. I think the plan works just fine if the nutbars don’t take money and end up dead. If the worst we can be accused of is fooling a murderous terrorist into dying for the wrong side, I’m okay with that. You know, I think most people would be okay with it, too. As for bribes, that money would be used to pay the families of the suicide bombers at the beginning, to set the honey pot trap to recruit nutbars. I think it is a stretch to call it “tribute” and the folks talking about that apparently haven’t read the OP or the thread very carefully. Maybe it would have been better worded to say “Recruit 'em!” (i.e. pay or bribe other people into helping you recruit and eliminate the nutbars) ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/35 "2010-07-10T03:57:42Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I think the implication in this statement is misleading. It is not as though Afghans and others were not fighting the USSR before the CIA and ISI became involved. We did not recruit them, they were already there. We gave them better weapons. And [a whole lot of professional training in effective terrorist techniques](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone), don’t forget that. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106/36 "2010-07-10T05:50:53Z")
> [@](#): > > No, it’s more like taking a Quaker or Hutterite and turning them into a 7th Day Adventist. Which is one of the examples I used. You want to brainwash the fundamentalism out of them and create a more moderate, modern person. What specific denomination do you think suicide bombers belong to? Because you apparently feel they have a distinct sect of their own. “Is that guy a terrorist?” “No, he’s a Hanafi Sunni.” “How about that guy?” “He’s an Alevi Shi’ite.” “That guy?” “Qadaini Abbadiyya.” “Him?” “Oyessi Sufi.” “What about that guy over there?” “That’s a Kamikazi Boomi! Grab him!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easier-way-to-defeat-terrorists-with-zero-us-casaulties-bribe-em/546106.md?page=1)