[WikiEN-l] The terrorists have won

[George Herbert]

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Nathan<nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 7 Jul 2009, Ian Woollard wrote:
>> > > But if they do make demands about silence, it is our ethical duty
>> > > to... censor ourselves?
>> > Yeah, why not? Just because your enemy want something to happen,
>> > doesn't mean you don't want it as well.
>>
>> But it has some negative effects that they don't care about and we do.
>>
>> For instance, modifying our articles when a hostage is threatened
>> encourages
>> other terrorists to take hostages.  How long until some terrorist demands
>> that
>> we alter our Jenin article to say that Israel committed a massacre, or else
>> they start executing hostages, now that we've demonstrated that we can be
>> coerced in that way?
>>
>
> I have a hard time believing you honestly see that as even a remote
> possibility. In the extraordinarily unlikely case that a psychotic terrorist
> takes someone hostage to effect a short term change in a *Wikipedia
> article*, I doubt our prior response to such pressure will figure
> significantly in his/her decision process.


I see where Ken is coming from on this, but there's not a bright line.

One does not immediately do exactly the opposite of what a terrorist
demands be done, in order to frustrate the value of them issuing
demands completely.  One example might be, for instance,
extrajudicially executing prisoners that terrorists demand to be
released.

Doing what terrorists demand, in total, encourages them.  Same with
criminals.  But when lives are at stake there is usually a large grey
area of various levels of partial cooperation that increases the odds
of successful survival of the victims.  In that large grey area are
usually large swaths of cooperation that nobody really feels are
unethical (i.e., holding discussions / negotiations with the terrorist
or criminal), large swaths which are commonly done but sometimes some
people object to (news blackouts, etc), some which are commonly done
but feel like giving in (paying ransom).

A news blackout, to me, seems much less ambiguous and much less giving
in than paying ransom.  We do not impose legal or social penalties
against families or companies that pay ransoms.  Objecting strongly to
news blackouts, without objecting strongly to ransoms, seems somewhat
contradictory.  Even though ransoms encourage more kidnappings,
they're seen as necessary to save human life.  Even though they
directly enrich the criminal or terrorist.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com