Dire Questions - Dangerous Days

Scott Dinsmore over at In the Meantime asks in extreme understatement, is this Exploitation of Polite Society?

David Bernstein at Volokh Conspiracy asks whether the Israeli prohibition against the death penalty for terrorists isn’t foolish. He details the strategy of Hezbullah to abduct Israeli soldiers for the express purpose of initiating such a trade. Is this recent trade of an iconic terrorist (convicted of killing a father and beat to death his 4 year old) and four others for the remains of 2 dead Israeli solidiers another example of the strategic exploitation of liberal society in order to destroy it? I wish to think that liberal values are too precious to lose in the fight against one’s enemies. I’m not sure right now.

What I hear Scott asking is this, Is the relinquishing of the hard-fought value of radical non-retaliation against one's enemies - which is at the heart of the movement of the Judaeo-Christian ethos - something we must reconsider in light of enemies who do not share this moral apprehension?

To have such moral apprehension and inhibition, one must be exposed to the revelation of the biblical faiths. Followers of the Scimitar have no such influence, or only a poor one, insofar as their prophet put together their holy book piecemeal from the Scriptures of the Jewish and Christian faiths.

René Girard has explained via his mimetic theory the reasons that a Rival in a Model/Rival doubling problem will both hate and be fascinated with their Model. We can also know that a religion without the benefit of the influence of the biblical spirit will function on an entirely different O/S; namely, the primitive sacred replete with need for human sacrifice.

But what it does not help us understand is how to find the answer to we how deal with enemies who will use any means to destroy their Rival double - Israel, Judaism, the Christian West, the Catholic Church - and don't mind destroying themselves in the process.

The Catholic Church uses the reasoning of Saint Thomas Aquinas in sanctioning legitimate defense. I would offer it to any who are interested in answering the dire and difficult problems posed by terrorists today.