Social Experiment Involving Money and Insurgency

This is an idea I was juggling around in my head a few years back, shortly after my cousin was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. After wanting to fly in a chopper over there to strangle to death the man who planted the bomb, I instead let the creative juices flow to where I thought up a new use for money in trouble spots in Africa and the Mideast.

This is definitely not a petition to the government/people to hunt down and kill one man, a la Kony 2012. Instead, it's a petition to everyone in the troubled area to work toward recognition, kindness, and trust, the true currency of the world.

The method is as follows: drop in a hundred dollar bill, a highly publicized hundred dollar bill (or the equivalent in the local currency), in the region that is seeing the most grief, with a piece of paper attached. Write a message on the paper, it can be amended to accommodate for whatever area it's dropped in, but let's say it's Afghanistan. It would read:

"Dear Citizen,

It is dangerous for you to hold onto this money. You may wish to relinquish it to the proper authority."

"Dear Afghan Police,

This money is not intended for you to use to increase your arsenal. Instead, use it to help build schools and infrastructure. Please read on."

"Leader of the Jihad,

We will be dropping twice this amount next week only under the stipulation that the number of civilian, Taliban, and U.S. military deaths due to military action and suicide attacks is fewer during the week than the number of deaths from the week prior to today's date. If the number of deaths is the same or even higher, we will not be dropping money again for 2 weeks, and it will be at $100 again. Each week the death count decreases we will double the money, ($200, $400, $800, and so on) and each week it stays the same or increases we will stop for two weeks, then pick back up the moment we get back down to below what was the lowest number of deaths. This will be repeated up until $1,000,000 (after 15 weeks). It is our hope, though, that you begin receiving $1,000,000 every week even sooner, under a different stipulation. That is, any week with zero deaths from military action and suicide attacks will see $1,000,000 dropped automatically. Since we sincerely want to bring our troops home safe, we will begin pulling them back. Since no one wants their child to have to wander down a road always shifting their eyes toward any potential threats, we recommend you put the money to building schools and infrastructure instead of stockpiling weapons. Any news of stockpiling weapons for a future attack will also factor in our decision to drop the money. We also ask you consider this carefully and avoid reactionary killings in response to this, it's up to you if we drop more money or not. This is more an attempt to save lives than an attempt to manipulate. These olive branch money offerings will last for a year."

The idea is to improve foreign policy, win some hearts, maybe get some of the Taliban to alienate or even kill off even the most hardcore of jihadists, and appeal to reason. When money is involved, even insurgents see reason.

The general idea is there, and specifics can be worked out (initial amount, max amount, one big drop or multiple smaller drops, etc.). Any and all improvements are welcome, since I do intend to email the idea to my congressman. Call me a pacifist, an idealist, or what have you, but I just don't know why our troops' lives are devalued so much. This also probably wouldn't end up costing 100s of billions. Let me know what you think.

It's an interesting idea, but I highly doubt any of that money would be put to use for peaceful infrastructure improvements. Structured so as to eliminate any such shortcomings, I would be very interested to see a plan such as this put into action.

Good point. Maybe dropping vouchers would be a less risky alternative. The vouchers would be for different items, still worth the same as the monetary amounts along the 100 times 2^(x) curve, and could only be used for educational materials, raw materials (nothing that can be turned into a weapon), food, housing, etc.

Problems to address with this are that jihadists may burn the vouchers so no one can use them and jihadists may also threaten to kill anyone who uses the vouchers. In the first case it would be important to make small drops in different areas so at least some of them make it through while in both cases threats by the Taliban against their own would develop a PR problem for them. Plus if the vouchers don't get used then it would simply mean we don't have to spend the resources to help them build up the Afghan society.

The goal overall is to get them more used to a peaceful society, happy to stay its course and not drop back into the mire.

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Originally Posted by Chard

The goal overall is to get them more used to a peaceful society, happy to stay its course and not drop back into the mire.

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I really wish it were that simple, though.

I got a better idea: just pull out the troops, put them to work defending THEIR OWN COUNTRY. Problem solves itself once the "terrorists" lose their business.

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Originally Posted by cmind

Problem solves itself once the "terrorists" lose their business.

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What?

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Originally Posted by Supernova

What?

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Foreign military occupation is arguably the most significant and common reason for terrorists existing in the first place, at least in this context. Remove their cause for being in "business," and the problem may go away or be reduced significantly.

Better solution: You know how when a butterfly flaps it's wings it makes a tornado?
Next time you are thinking about being a dick or doing something even remotely rude or hurtful to someone else, assuming you remember this, just don't flap your damn wings. You may even stop a tornado.

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Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

Foreign military occupation is arguably the most significant and common reason for terrorists existing in the first place, at least in this context. Remove their cause for being in "business," and the problem may go away or be reduced significantly.

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I think we need to back up from some de facto media propaganda and really think about our definition of "terrorist".

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Originally Posted by Supernova

I think we need to back up from some de facto media propaganda and really think about our definition of "terrorist".

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No shit. The point is, over there lots of people consider the US troops to be the terrorists. And it's hard to argue with them.

Your idea doesn't work in my mind OP because I don't see terrorist groups as financially motivated. Motivated by idealism, religion, or whatever, yes, but there is little financial gain in terrorism. Unless you use it as a threat to extort money.

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Originally Posted by cmind

No shit. The point is, over there lots of people consider the US troops to be the terrorists. And it's hard to argue with them.

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Yeah...my only point is that he was referring to insurgents as terrorists, which (although many Americans are probably unaware of it) is an entirely incorrect equivalency.

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Originally Posted by Supernova

Yeah...my only point is that he was referring to insurgents as terrorists, which (although many Americans are probably unaware of it) is an entirely incorrect equivalency.

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They've been used interchangeably here for years (9/11 happened when I was like 8 or 9) so even I can't help but slip up lol

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Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

They've been used interchangeably here for years (9/11 happened when I was like 8 or 9) so even I can't help but slip up lol

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Whoa I totally thought you were older than me, but you're actually 4 years younger!

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Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

They've been used interchangeably here for years (9/11 happened when I was like 8 or 9) so even I can't help but slip up lol

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Yeah, I usually try to keep an eye on that stuff. "Over there killing Iraqi terrorists" sounds a lot more supportable than "over there killing Iraqis".

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I'm with the pull out crowd, which is why I mention pulling back troops as part of the plan. The objection you normally run into when arguing for immediate withdrawal is that we'd leave it an even more dangerous place for fostering Al Qaeda ideology and threats to the U.S. Whether or not this is true can be debated in another topic. What I offer is a way around that objection.

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Originally Posted by Saturos

Your idea doesn't work in my mind OP because I don't see terrorist groups as financially motivated. Motivated by idealism, religion, or whatever, yes, but there is little financial gain in terrorism. Unless you use it as a threat to extort money.

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The higher ups are most likely motivated by ideology; I'm aiming for the low-to-mid level Taliban fighters. And Afghanistan is just a place I chose arbitrarily, I should've made that more clear. I'm sure there are places in the world where money and resources would be more greatly appreciated by an opposing force. It just requires that the established regime put forth this effort.

Back to Afghanistan, though, there is currently a reintegration program that pays Taliban fighters to put down their weapons and rejoin society. They've had trouble with people pretending to be insurgents just so they can collect the stipend. For my social experiment, I've tied what they earn directly in with the total number of deaths each week, so no improvement means no money (or vouchers). I for one think it's worth a try; if it fails, then we've lost little. If it succeeds, then it will have made Afghanistan a safer place, cost some millions instead of 100s of billions we spend to just butt heads, and we can finally get out of there.

Keep up the discussion. Let me know any changes/improvements you would make, any obstacles it faces, or if it wouldn't work and why. I'm thinking now of changing 2 weeks of no money after no improvement down to 1 week.

It's an interesting idea. Definitely shows you can think pretty logically. I don't know if it would work, but I will say that you should definitely write your senator (or whatever it is in U.S that you said you were going to lol).

I'd say the vouchers would be better than money. Although they may just be sold for money. Either way I guess someone would get the goods.
How do the people claim these vouchers? Would there be centres where people could claim the vouchers, or just use the money to buy stuff?
It would be okay for food and that, but what about building schools? How would that be organized so that a villager with a voucher can get a school built?

The best thing about this is that it may make the leaders realise they will only get more money if people aren't getting killed, so land mines will be removed and probably laws would become more liberal since you don't want people killing their wives for not wearing a burka or whatever, conditions would improve generally.

Ideally.

Yeah I'm starting to lean more toward vouchers than money. Even if they do get sold we at least won't risk introducing new money that may be used for less-than-ideal purposes. The vouchers would be turned in to town centers run by local Afghans for goods and services, supervised by American and NATO forces since they are, after all, our goods and services. So if the Taliban don't defect and come out of the countryside then they'll just be missing out, unlike villagers that were lucky enough to happen upon a voucher. It'd still be important to drop them where everyone has a chance at them.

Of course I'm open to any suggestions on how to make it work for improving infrastructure and education. What I'm thinking is that the first few drops of vouchers would be for the basics, like food, books, writing utensils and basic building equipment. If, say, they were to get a good week in with no senseless deaths (tall order yes, but with steadily improving conditions it could happen), then that million could represent a service for building several schools and paying wages for teachers instead of a voucher. We'd still drop water and food vouchers as well, so if they don't value education then they at least would work to the end of having some sustenance, while the building service would still be there for those who want to take advantage of it.

If a Monopoly at McDonald's approach is what it takes to right the ship then so be it. Maybe a couple of other improvements to the plan and I'll edit the original post to reflect them.