Reforming enemies must be done diligently

How can we tell if our enemies are truly reformed and not just pretending because it’s convenient for them to tell us what we want to hear and behave in a way to fool us into believing they have changed?

All the while they are harboring grudges, planning rebellions and other nastiness. They need to lull us into complacency first. Make us think we’ve won. We let our guard down, no longer seeing our enemy as a threat, and get stabbed in the back right after. In some cases – literally. Classic Sun Tzu. Reforming enemies must be done diligently.

These points are often brought up by people I exchange views with. It’s amazing how people from dramatically different walks of life essentially raise the same concerns. Some express their concerns using more sophisticated wording while others use simple words (simple vs sophisticated is relative, all depends on one’s background, sometimes simple words work much better), but the underlying ideas and concerns are the same.

How can we be sure that our reformed enemy is truly reformed and not just telling us what we want to hear? It’s an ancient dilemma different cultures have different answers to.

I like the Israeli approach, ”We’ll do what must be done to break our enemies” rather than pretending to be all about ethics as some holier-than-thou high-horsed nations do.

First of all, it’s crucial to ask: what does reform of that individual look like to us? Do we want him or her to publically renounce their ideology, language, culture? Admit to being a war criminal, a propagandist who called for genocide or some other functionary – and apologizing? Asking for forgiveness. Does enforced guilt count? It could count, as history of accountability for atrocities shows. But how do we know if these words are sincere or merely a survival strategy, buying time to escape or stab us in the back?

People can be reformed but then they are sent back to their social circle, for example, where they get re-radicalized. Now they are smarter. They know how to play the role of a contrite enemy. Age-old dilemmas of intelligence agencies, in particular. How do you know when someone has been broken, flipped, and ca be trusted to be a double agent and it’s not an act?

Psychopaths are notorious for their inability to change. Sure, they are going to tell you that they’ve changed, put on a show with tears and tantrums if need be, they are masterful sob story tellers, they are going to gauge what you want to hear and see and they’ll make sure you buy into their charade. Why? Deep down, you want to believe them because it means you’ve succeeded in reforming them. An ego-boost. Psychopaths can convince you that they have a conscience, only to lull you into complacency and strike twice as hard, leaving you reeling from the shock of the whole interaction with the psychopath.

Giving access to sensitive information, whatever that means, to reformed enemies is a risky gamble, indeed. They must be checked ten times from all angles before they are given access to that kind of data. And then eleventh time just to be sure. Lie detector tests? I don’t know how reliable they are. It’s my understanding the test starts right after one walks into a room, all is measured, not only when one actually takes the test. Still, I can see psychopaths passing with flying colors. Lying and breathing is the same to them. Add high intelligence and you’ve got an explosive and dangerous mix.

How would it be solved in hell? The demons, or whoever we picture in charge of hell, can’t be lied to. They are too smart to be fooled by any human. They know the game of the condemned souls inside out.

Maybe some souls in hell stay there temporarily if they can truly change and get out of hell as a result, while others, such as psychopaths and hardcore fanatics absolutely unable and unwilling to change their views no matter what, stay in hell forever, in their ridiculous rooms and clownish roles they can’t get out of, snickered at for eternity. God is logical and such a construct certainly is logical.

Say you have a Z-patriot forced to play Ukrainian songs like the Carol of the Bells on her violin. She’s also forced to wear a swan lake attire and speak Ukrainian and American English. Both arch-enemies in her zealous Z-mind, while Ukrainian, she can’t even accept it’s a language, surely it’s just a dialect of Russian. By the way, I’m pretty sure the demons would’ve chosen the Carol of the Bells – the (Kevin) Home Alone version. Makes the former Z-propagandist’s torture even more demeaningly delicious.

The Z-patriot averts her eyes and assures the demon she’s now reformed and her mind is no longer Russian-imperial. That she now recognizes Ukraine as a real nation and Ukrainian as a real language. Same with the Polish language – it isn’t some corrupted Russian using the Latin alphabet and grammar, but a separate language. The demon takes a peek into the Russian maniac’s mind and sees it’s all a lie. She hasn’t reformed. She’s waiting for the right moment to strike or get out of that ridiculous Ukrainian room she’s stuck in. The demon growls and tells her to keep playing the violin. She isn’t perfect enough. If she keeps playing games, instead of the violin, well, there’s always lava. The Z-patriot rolls her eyes and does as she’s told.

God might even erase such a soul from existence if nothing else works. That threat could serve as a catalyst of real change. Then again, such an erasure from existence would be welcomed by the damned soul as an end of demeaning torture. ”Soul is energy and energy can neither be created, nor destroyed.” My cliche, yet relevant, answer? God is omnipotent.

I titled my popular Kyiv Post article, Russia Wants Eternal War, All Else is Wishful Thinking. The same applies to Iran. Same mentality. To Russians, Ukrainian agency is anathema. To the Iranian regime – Israeli agency is anathema. Let’s distinguish between the Iranian regime apparatus and the Iranian people. Iranians (Persians) gave refuge to 120.000. Poles during World War 2. Isfahan, the historical capital of Persia, even gained a name of the “city of Polish children” during the Second World War.