What can we learn from the biblical passage: “An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth”?

There are at least two interpretations.

The first is that revenge is right. If one has been hurt or slighted by someone, then s/he can inflict the same degree of punishment of the other person.

The second is that punishing someone who has committed some unlawful act is intended to deter others from doing the same. The punishment is not for the sake of revenge, but for the purpose of deterrence. Since not everyone who commits an unlawful act is caught, convicted and/or punished, the penalty needs to far exceed the damage caused. Otherwise, the penalty will only weakly deter others.

I prefer the second interpretation since it is much more rational.

Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 140 years in prison for his crimes as a signal to others that fraud on a large scale will be harshly punished. In the US, treble damages are common in many civil cases, including anti-trust cases. Capital punishment has been justified on the basis of some empirical studies that concluded that for each person found guilty of a capital crime and subsequently executed, several other capital crimes have been deterred.

For a brief period following the execution of Osama bin Laden, there were many people who deplored the actions of the US, claiming that the US was inhumane, amoral, uncivilized and that the actions were illegal. My only criticism is that the Navy Seals should have had the go-ahead to kill everyone in the house with OBL. Take no prisoners, leave no witnesses when dealing with terrorists.

A bit extreme some may claim.

In introducing game theory to students, many professors over the years have started with the “prisoner’s dilemma”. Two people caught committing a crime are interrogated separately in order to persuade one to turn against the other and thus implicate the other person in a number of similar crimes for which evidence is lacking for a conviction. The usual outcome is that both confess. This is generally where the discussion ends.

However, I like to point out that organized crime solved this “dilemma” initially by threatening, and following through on the threat, to kill anyone who turns against the gang and becomes a witness for the prosecution – the state. This in turn led to the witness protection program, which in turn led to bribes by organized crime to find the whereabouts of the turncoats.

As I pointed out in an earlier blog in August, the Russian and Colombian cartels have taken this “game” a step further and created an even more elegant and effective deterrent. They have threatened, and have followed through to varying degrees, to kill as many members of a “turncoat’s” family as possible, and in some cases to kill as many of this person’s friends and acquaintances as possible.

I have joked that these cartels could afford and probably did retain the services of a game theory expert from Harvard or MIT to find this solution to the prisoner’s dilemma.

Thus, when we are dealing with terrorists – of course, this requires clear-cut definitions of what constitutes a terrorist act – deterrence should be the priority, not revenge. We want to deter other members of the gang, and we want to deter the creation of new terrorist gangs. If killing so-called “innocents” is required, then there should be no hesitation or second-guessing.

As I have said before, killing one to save two is an easy choice. So too is killing 20 to save 21. In the case of deterring terrorists, the trade-offs are easier to make and even more compelling.

Maybe the Navy Seals and their commanders will learn from the sole “mistake” they made this time, and when they execute the next leader of a terrorist group, they will not hesitate to kill everyone else in the room with him. It’s not brutality; it’s deterrence!

The opinions expressed in this blog are personal and do not reflect the views of either Global Brief or the Glendon School of Public and International Affairs.