Perspective on Guantanamo

A year ago, I spoke with a friend of our family, Luther Smith about his experiences in World War II. Luther was a proud member of the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black fighter regiment. He was captured by Germans in Yugoslavia in 1944 after his plane became crippled on a strafing mission. To this day, Luther walks with a permanent limp from the broken hip his suffered in that accident (For more on Luther Smith, who is a truly amazing man, read the whole article from the link).

Luther brought up an interesting truism about war and rules that transcend the paper that politicians write on: ways that one engages an honorable enemy, versus a dishonorable one.

Late in the war, Luther's 332nd Fighter Group were escourting their bombers when German fighers would try and intercept them. The Luftwaffe had been utterly decimated by the Allies and their talent pool dwindled to pilots who could barely keep the plane in the air, much less successfully engage superior pilots flying one of the most lethal figher planes of the day. Luther and his fellow pilots recognized that if they got behind their German prey without shooting, the German pilot would often times bail out of the aircraft, thus ending the dogfight. Luther said (paraphrase), "as long as they jumped, we didn't shoot."

They knew that the German was only following orders and would no longer be a threat once he bailed out. Luther even mentioned that at times they would get close enough to see the faces of the German pilots to notice that some of them were no older than 15 - 16 years old!

The truism works as such: in battle there are unwritten rules that soldiers engage in based on their views of the enemy. In Luther's case, the enemy gives up the fight, the attacker relents and let the man live knowing that he was no longer a threat to him and the overall war effort. Conversely, if German pilots pretended to "surrender" only to shoot once the Allied pilot disengaged, Allied pilots would cease to allow the Germans to "escape" through this option; they would immediately shoot them down. Compare Luther's example with a pilot, or a marine, in the Pacific fighting the Japanese who would fight by any means to the death.

Steven Den Beste described this in his post on the Prisoner's Dilemna:

There's been a lot of analysis of this, and it turns out that honesty isn't the best policy. One guy decided to run a computer tournament; people were permitted to create algorithms in a synthetic language which would have the ability to keep track of previous exchanges and make a decision on each new exchange whether to be honest or to cheat. He challenged them to see who could come up with the one which did the best in a long series of matches against various opponents. It turned out that the best anyone could find, and the best anyone has ever found, was known as "Tit-for-tat".

On the first round, it plays fair. On each successive round, it does to the other guy what he did the last time.

When Tit-for-tat plays against itself, it plays fair for the entire game and maximizes output. When it plays against anyone who tosses in some cheating, it punishes it by cheating back and reduces the other guys unfair winnings.

No-one has ever found a way of defeating it.

He then delivers this thought experiment and puts it into context with true meaning of the Geneva Convention:

Now let's analyze two different and even more simplistic approaches; we'll call them "saint" and "sinner". The saint plays fair every single round, irrespective of what the other guy does. The sinner always cheats.

When a saint plays against another saint, or against tit-for-tat, the result is optimum but more important is that everyone gets the same result. When a sinner plays against another sinner, or against tit-for-tat, everyone cheats and the result is still even, though less than optimal.

But when a sinner plays against a saint, the sinner wins and the saint loses.

Which brings me back to the point of all this: Is there anything I would rule out in war? Nothing I'd care to admit to my enemies, because ruling out anything is a "saint" tactic. The Tit-for-tat tactic is to be prepared to do anything, but not to do so spontaneously. In other words, if the other guy threatens to use poison gas, you make sure you have some of your own and let him know that you'll retaliate with it. That means that he has nothing to win by using it, and he won't. (A war is a sequence game and not a single transaction because each day is a new exchange. If you gassed my guys yesterday, I can gas yours today.)

...And so it is here. No, I cannot promise ahead of time that my nation will not bomb innocents, or use terrorism, or torture, or poison gas, or bio weapons, or nuke, nor in fact can I exclude anything. If I do, then I am adopting a "saint" strategy and leave myself wide open for the use of such tactics against my own side by an opposing sinner. Only by being willing to do those kinds of things myself can I deter their use against me.

I believe that my nation must adopt tit-for-tat instead of using saint tactics, because it is much better. But for that to work, I have to be willing to be as dirty as he is, if he forces me to be.

This is the theoretical basis for such aphorisms as "To get peace, you must prepare for war." That means that your nation is prepared to use tit-for-tat. The pacifist idea of publicly pledging to never go to war, or to never use a particular tactic in that war, is instead a saint strategy, and it results in disaster.

The Geneva Convention is deliberately constructed to be tit-for-tat. It says explicitly that a nation is obligated to follow the convention only if the other nation is also a signatory and is also following it. If the Geneva Convention was binding on signatory nations even against non-signatory nations, it would be a "saint" tactic. But since you follow the convention with others who also do, and don't against those who don't, that makes it "tit for tat".

Tit-for-tat says that you're civilized to those who are civilized to you, and you're a vile son-of-a-bitch to those who want to be that way.

By the way, the nuclear deterrent was another example of tit-for-tat. "Bomb me, and I'll bomb you back. Leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone."

Today's fight against Islamic Radicals is precisely of this nature. They are using sinner tactics in hopes that we'll be forced to the high ground to protect our saint-hood. However, does engaging in sinner tactics make one a sinner? If it is clear that we are only willing to use sinner tactics against those that insist on "cheating" in battle and not against other "saints," then the answer is "no."

In the history of warfare, there has rarely been a more undignified and dishonorable enemy than the Islamic fundamentalists and despotic fascists we fight today. When they attack, they mainly attack civilians--men, women and children. When they defend against attacks, they hide in hospitals, mosques and schools wearing clothes that won't distinguish them from other civilians. Coalition soldiers cannot tell "insurgent" from "civilian" as they are rounding up those who have the potential to kill.

Now, some of these captured insurgents wind up in Guantanamo. On the battlefield, it is understandable that soldiers err on the side of caution, but should our government be setting up official policies that sanction "sinner" tactics?

I say yes. The Islamofascists must know that the United States will not allow them to successfully engage us through the use of "sinner" tactics. They pin their hopes on being granted the same consideration as American citizens in hopes that they can cause enough reasonable doubt to walk free. Conviction in court is much harder than simply being caught hanging out with a bunch of Talibanis. A guilty man who walks free means one that has a high probability of attempting another attack that, mostly likely, will be aimed at civilians. Are we willing to take this risk?

There are those that are worried that the adoption of these tactics is a slippery slope that will lead to America losing it's soul. Kind of like the theory of pot being the "gateway drug"; one that is more harmful to the potential it unlocks versus its actual danger. I agree that the debate should be held about how we should conduct ourselves, however I specifically disagree that in disallowing the Geneva Convention standards to prisoners held in Guantanamo will cause us lose our soul. Quite the contrary; I think it preserves it. The Geneva Convention was designed to acknowledge the standards that all parties must demonstrate in armed conflict if they are to be applicable.

Also, on a practical level, if we were to close Guantanamo and allow these men POW status, we would lose valuable intellegence gained from interregation (banned under the Geneva Conventions). Remember, these radicals are not plotting attacks against the United States military, they are planning attacks against civilians.

Those calling for the close of Guantanamo must acknowledge that they are willing to give up intellegence gained through interrogation in order to act "in the spirit of human rights." We will be forced to use less reliable and more specious methods to gather intellegence and this gap will cause us to be more vulnerable to attack. Are we willing to accept an increased risk of another 9-11 to "play by the rules" that our enemies refuse to even acknowledge, much less play by?

So, I don't know what types of methods are being used in Guantanamo, nor do I care. I hope they are ringing every piece of intellegence they can out of them, while also sending a message to their faithful back at home that we are not going to allow them to continue to use their dubious and dishonorable tactics without paying for it.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at June 14, 2005 06:00 PM | TrackBack