Terrorizing the terrorist

Strategy Page:

In Iraq, the Russians are about to show the Americans how it's done. Or at least try to. After four Russian embassy personnel were recently murdered by terrorists, many experienced counter-terrorism professionals expected the Russians to act. Russia, over some two centuries, has developed some very successful techniques for dealing with terrorists. When confronted with terrorist attacks like this, the Russians go in and play by terrorist rules. They terrorize the terrorists. Back in the 1980s, for example, Islamic terrorists in Lebanon kidnapped a Russian diplomat. The Russians (then the Soviets, a distinction without much difference in these matters) quickly found out which faction had their guy, kidnapped a relative of one of the kidnappers, and had a body part delivered to the Islamic kidnappers. The message was, release the Russian diplomat unharmed, or the KGB (Soviet secret police) would keep sending body parts, and grabbing kinfolk of the kidnappers. The Russian diplomat was released. Apparently that lesson has been forgotten, at least in some parts of Iraq....

I would let them have a crack at the bad guys. I would share intelligence with them on who was responsible. I would then ask them to send more than a few special forces troops and get serious about going after terorist outside of Russia. Welcome to the war on terror.

The Belmont Club looks at the Russian threat in the context of the leftist lawfare meme.

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But sooner or later the advocates of international law are going to realize what every judge knows. It's one thing to issue a warrant. It's another to get someone to serve it. Of course, the international law people are probably counting on the United States to ride out and do their bidding, without which their "power" over Russia or the Israeli Airforce will be slim to none. If international law is the new god it is the sort of god that needs the United States of America to carry out its divine mandates. The sort of god with clay feet, one might imagine.

Maybe a lot of handwringing over America's Gitmo and OIF really represents an internationalist fear that their influence over the USA exercised through a tacit acceptance of certain "standards" is waning. The argument that if America doesn't buy into the internationalist interpretation of the Geneva Conventions it is "weakening it's moral authority" and thereby weakening itself is really a slick inversion of the facts. What a failure to behave to the satisfaction of internationalists really does is weaken their perceived power in the way of an animal tamer whose lions have all of a sudden stopped responding to whipcracks and are more or less ignoring the man in the spangled suit in the cage with them....

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Yes sooner or later the warfare model intrudes and brings clarity to the muddle of the pretense of international law. One reason there is so little respect for their point of view is that they do not apply the same "law" to the enemy. When is the last time you have heard one of the internationalist blame civilian deaths on the enemy's refusal to wear a distinguishing uniform as required by teh Geneva Convention. Never. Nor do you hear much from them about the enemy's use of human shields which also violates the "rules of war." While occassionally you will hear complaints about the enemy's targeting of non combatants, but it is usually in the context of our failure to stop them and never in the context of the wickedness of the enemy.