From: "Helen"
Newsgroups: alt.appalachian
Subject: Misguided Sympathy for the Enemy
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 22:55:55 -0500

Misguided Sympathy for the Enemy
By Helen Smith
February 5, 2004

Violence breeds violence -- but so can nonviolence. This is often
forgotten in the debate over terrorism, as illustrated in some reviews
of the new book by David Frum and Richard Perle, An End to Evil: How
to Win the War on Terror. Perle and Frum lay out a bold plan to defend
America. But more important than their specific proposals, they
provide insight into how our leaders are confronting -- or not
confronting -- the war on terrorism.

As a forensic psychologist, what I found most worthwhile about the
book was this unapologetic attitude toward terrorists and terrorism. I
believe the authors are correct when they promote strong tactics in
dealing with terrorists. In fact, I believe that the liberal stance of
trying too hard to "humanize" our enemies is a mistake that will make
the problem worse, and produce more violence rather than less.

Frum and Perle's view is not popular among the media elite. Case in
point: a New York Times review by Michiko Kakutani that criticizes the
authors as they:

"purvey a worldview of us-versus-them, all-or-nothing, either-or, and
this outlook results in a refusal to countenance the possibility that
people who do not share the authors' views about the war in Iraq or
their faith in a pre-emptive, unilateralist foreign policy might have
legitimate reasons for doing so."

I suppose it follows from this statement that Kakutani would rather
promote understanding and empathy with respect to injuries that
Muslims feel they have suffered at the hands of the United States. No
surprise he Frum and Perle state that some commentators even
suggested that Islamic anti-Americanism should be regarded as an
understandable reaction to the materialism and hedonism of American
life, as refracted through MTV, pornography, and the Internet.
Apparently, they were anticipating Kakutani's review. In a Clintonian
sort of approach, some Americans seem to believe that if we can "feel
our enemies' pain," then we will be on the path to enlightenment and
peace. This belief could not be further from the truth.

In my private practice, I don't work with terrorists but I do work
with violent people. I used to believe (as many of my colleagues still
do) that empathizing with my patients and increasing their self-esteem
would help them on the path to self-actualization. Of course, for some
anxiety-ridden patients who need faith in themselves, the technique of
empathy and support works. However, for those patients with serious
violent tendencies, just the opposite is true. With those patients,
I've found that setting clear boundaries and making judgments about
their immoral behavior works like a charm.

Those patients who threatened me backed down only when I got up in
their face and told them forcefully to stop -- the slightest hint of
fear or intimidation (or sympathy!) on my part was met with increased
threats. In the real world of private practice, confronting real
murderers, I learned to act in ways that were different from what I
had been taught in graduate school.

Unfortunately, there are still those in the ivory tower who have not
learned this valuable lesson. They continue to believe that to
humanize and to empathize with violent students, professors, and
terrorists is the only way to treat those who wish to do them harm. In
fact, however, the old saw "give them an inch and they'll take a mile"
applies. Without clear boundaries, and a sense of consequences, their
behavior will spiral out of control until they injure themselves and
others.

This seems to be the case where America's limp response to terrorism
in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s is concerned (Osama bin Laden
reportedly joked that the worst Americans would do in response to 9/11
was file a lawsuit.) It's also the case with crimes closer to home. As
a recent study of mine indicates, university administrators often
think that angry, violent students and faculty can be placated if they
are understood and given what they ask for -- just like terrorists.
But in recent university shootings, just the opposite happened.

Valery Fabrikant was a mechanical engineering professor at Concordia
University in Canada who, after being denied tenure, murdered four of
his colleagues. Apparently, the professor's rudeness and disruptive
behavior had started a good ten years before he opened fire on his
colleagues. He even boasted to others that he planned to shoot various
professors and take hostages -- but instead of being disciplined or
fired for this outrageous behavior, he was promoted and given raises.
Many of the faculty were too frightened or impotent to take action
against Mr. Fabrikant. One of the senior members of the engineering
department even insisted that "giving Fabrikant what he wanted would
bring out the best in him." Instead of acting to subdue his anger,
giving in to his demands time and time again encouraged him to act in
more and more outrageous ways, and eventually sent him on a killing spree.

In a similar case at the Appalachian Law School in 2002, a student by
the name of Peter Odighizuwa murdered three and wounded three others
before being subdued at gunpoint by his fellow students. Dean L.
Anthony Sutin had helped Odighizuwa get into law school and even
allowed him back in after he had flunked out the first time. Sutin and
the school helped him get a loan, and to buy a car and a computer.
Odighizuwa was known for his belligerent manner and threats to harm
others.But in the academic world where nonviolence and understanding
are believed to work wonders, no one bothered to tell Odighizuwa that
his behavior was unacceptable. Once he flunked a second time, he was
told he had to go, but instead he took the lives of some of the people
who had helped him the most.

As any parent can attest, it's hard to punish those close to you.
Social psychologists tell us that people strongly disapprove of
punitive actions and rarely excuse them when they are directed at
persons depicted in humanized terms. Psychological studies also show
it is hard to be harsh toward others when they are humanized or even
personalized a bit. This is why defense lawyers have their clients
dress up in nice clothes and include personal information about them
in trials. It makes their clients seem more human and less likely to
receive a severe punishment, despite the fact that they may have
murdered someone. Likewise, when the media and academics personalize
terrorists to the extent that the American public feels they "know
them," it is hard to support acting in ways that are incongruent with
our treatment of someone we know. But in trying so hard to humanize
the enemy -- who, remember, hates us -- we wind up dehumanizing
ourselves, and in the process we do the victims of terrorists and
murderers an injustice.

I've seen this in murder cases too, where psychologists and
social-services workers are more interested in helping the murderer
than in seeking justice. The victim, I'm sometimes told rather
callously, is already dead.

Frum and Perle remind us that many would treat international
terrorists the same way we treat domestic murderers: as sick people to
be cured, without regard to the dignity of those they kill. In our
attempt to be overly-tolerant and empathetic, we start to identify too
much with the enemy (very much like those suffering from Stockholm
syndrome) and start to dehumanize the victims of terror. Surely, the
victims of 9/11 deserve more from us than that. As do the potential
victims who might be saved by a more realistic, and less "nurturing,"
approach.


--------------------------------------------------------------
------------------
Dr. Helen Smith is a forensic psychologist in Knoxville,
Tennessee. She is the author of The Scarred Heart:
Understanding and Identifying Kids Who Kill, and the executive
producer and writer of Six, a documentary about a mass murder.

No 220-pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110-pound
woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out. Is that evil?
Is that wrong? People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence,
they're begging for the rule of brute force, when the biggest, strongest
animals among men were always automatically "right". Guns end that,
and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make
it work.
- L. Neil Smith