Re: Why tribal militants kill, or behead their captives
This is nothing new, and not limited to the Islamic world. Even in modern times, the Khemer Rouge and Rwanda fighters used "horror" as a tactic. What we now term "terrorism" has always been a technique on the battlefield. Here is the rational.
1) By exceding the norms of combat, one side tries to instill fear into ignorant troops.
2) By harming women and children, one side stakes out it's territory as "determined, brutal and ruthless", thus trying to convince the more "civilized" opponent that they cannot prevail. This often backfires when the brutal fighters lose the confidence of the populice.
3) When one side choses unconventional targets, mosques, cruise ships, airliners, olympic atheletes, they are demonstrating that there is no front line, and that any target is a legitimate target. This forces the defense to defend more areas, and to spread their defenses thinner. If the more "civilized" side chooses not to reciprocate and attack unconventional targets, the "barbaric" side has a tactical advantage.
4) In most cases the "civilized" side has superior conventional forces, but will choose not to use them to their full effect. One exception to this is the Syrian town of Hama. Assad's father had a conflict with Islamic Extremeists centered in the town of Hama. Rather than flush out the innocents as the US did in Fallujah. The Syrian army surrounded the town and did not let anyone out. They pulverized the town in an artillery seige that lasted weeks. The town of 30,000 people was leveled. Then he did an odd thing. He invited in the world press. The story was widely broadcast, and served notice as to how Syria would deal with Islamic extremeists, and rebellious towns. It bought him decades of peace with the extremeists. Saddam also used massive State horror to control his population.
Horror should be a tactic that generally backfires, but in many cases fear is stronger that revulsion, and the world has failed to take a unified stance against those who commit these horrors, instead rationalizing their reasons for engaging in it.....
