Some Thoughts on Kidnapping
Jason Kuznicki on Jan 31st 2006
In a puzzling post below, Sandefur weighs in on kidnapping. He seems to argue as follows:
1. It’s not acceptable to kidnap people.
2. However, the kidnapping story came from Reuters. Because of one boneheaded editorial decision (declining to use the word “terrorist”), no story from Reuters may be given any credibility. Besides, the Reuters staff in Israel once did something very stupid (n.b.: the Israeli Reuters contingent does not seem to have worked on the story in question).
3. We have not seen in what context an American soldier wrote the following words: “”What are you guys doing to try to get the husband — have you tacked a note on the door and challenged him to come get his wife?” Perhaps there’s some chance that this doesn’t really denote a kidnapping. Sandefur may be on the strongest ground of all with this point, but again, I’m not terribly impressed. It seems the plain meaning of the phrase — and hence the presumption we ought to have — is in favor of the kidnapping hypothesis.
4. There is also some chance that the kidnapped women and children may have been terrorists themselves; after all, it has happened before. By inference, Sandefur seems to suggest that it is relatively more legitimate to kidnap suspects than others. By similar inference, it is relatively more legitimate to use these suspects for blackmail against others who are, again, only suspects.
I hope that Sandefur did not intend for us to make these inferences — yet otherwise, why would he bring up this point?
5. The kidnapped women and children weren’t abused. Again by inference, the whole thing is relatively more legitimate. Relatively, perhaps, but I still don’t like the looks of it.
The comments are open, and I welcome responses there.
Filed in The Barracks
Scratch my back and I won’t flail yours with razor wire
Jason Kuznicki at Positive Liberty is up in arms about a report that the United States has detained (or “kidnapped” as he would have it) the wives of suspected insurgents to
The main thing I took from Sandefur was that the only real source we have right now is from reuters, and reuters, like any other news resourse, can make mistakes; therefore, we should wait for more confirmation before rushing to justice. It seemed to me that he implied he would be against such a tactic, but that since he felt he didn’t have adequate details yet, he purposefully tried to keep his comments within a grey area.
But, who knows, perhaps I’m way off.
Also, what’s with the comments section lately? It seems that numerous comments don’t address the posts themselves, (see, for example the post above me by Still Angry). Are these trackbacks that are being shown with the rest of the general comments just in case we want to follow them to whichever blog is linking to PL?
…before rushing to justice.
I meant to say ‘judgement’. Oops.
Wow, lots of nasty, baseless invective in that first trackback. And very little actual reasoning.
I’ve already said all I care to say about the principles behind this matter, but I’ll give you a recap here anyway, if you’re decent enough to listen.
Using vicious tactics against the vicious fails because it convinces the fence-sitters that we’re no different from the other side — and because it convinces the other side that their cause is just. We want the fanatics to doubt the justice of their cause. It doesn’t help when we give them reasons, however feeble, to keep on fighting.
Yes, of course this is warped reasoning on their parts. But anyone who is on the fence between them and us is by definition going to display some warped reasoning. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to win them over. On the contrary, we must win them over if we are to defeat militant Islam. And if we can win over the fence-sitters by doing the right thing, so much the better.
Oh, and Dylan, what if someone took away your mother, or your newborn child? What if they treated them well, but wouldn’t tell you where they were until you met a set of demands? What if you were completely innocent, and this happened to you?
Would you still put the word “kidnapping” in quotes if it were your family? No, I’m sure you’d just shrug that off. Caring about it would be evidence of a “pathetic anklebiting mentality.” Your words, not mine.
[...] Here is what I’ve said just previous to Sandefur’s accusation: [...]