What drives the terrorists?
Posted by JoOct 27
Bruce Schneier writes in Wired magazine about the habits of terrorits. An interesting read.
Abrahms has an alternative model to explain all this: People turn to terrorism for social solidarity. He theorizes that people join terrorist organizations worldwide in order to be part of a community, much like the reason inner-city youths join gangs in the United States.
The evidence supports this. Individual terrorists often have no prior involvement with a group’s political agenda, and often join multiple terrorist groups with incompatible platforms. Individuals who join terrorist groups are frequently not oppressed in any way, and often can’t describe the political goals of their organizations. People who join terrorist groups most often have friends or relatives who are members of the group, and the great majority of terrorist are socially isolated: unmarried young men or widowed women who weren’t working prior to joining. These things are true for members of terrorist groups as diverse as the IRA and al-Qaida.
For example, several of the 9/11 hijackers planned to fight in Chechnya, but they didn’t have the right paperwork so they attacked America instead. The mujahedeen had no idea whom they would attack after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, so they sat around until they came up with a new enemy: America. Pakistani terrorists regularly defect to another terrorist group with a totally different political platform. Many new al-Qaida members say, unconvincingly, that they decided to become a jihadist after reading an extreme, anti-American blog, or after converting to Islam, sometimes just a few weeks before. These people know little about politics or Islam, and they frankly don’t even seem to care much about learning more. The blogs they turn to don’t have a lot of substance in these areas, even though more informative blogs do exist. [The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Terrorists - Wired]
(Link via email from Nikhil Nair)
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2 comments
Comment by Ajith Edassery on October 28, 2008 at 10:50 am
Though Bruce has some valid points in his article, it majorly reflects the oblique vision that typical American writers and press have. They some how wants to pretend that America & its policies are the always right though most of it are the outcome of their indifferent attitude and global policing – especially towards the east.
It’s ridiculous to think that the 9/11 attackers or mujahuddeens were not directly planning to attack America… It was America who bred terrorism in Persian region to counter the soviets. Over the years Americans (especially under republican rules – Daddy Bush and Son Bush to be precise) have chosen to attack on other nations those they thought are threats to them for various reasons. The other reasons were controlling global petroleum reserves and grabbing a major share in the modern war weapon, machinery and nuclear market.
In olden days the wars used to be instigated by religious issues and with looting purposes and or trade opportunities. Right now, it’s much the same thing in its new incarnation…
(Let’s not forget that India is now trying to police the Lankans unnecessarily – more or less dancing to the tunes of DMK and the so called Tamil nationalists. It should not be absolutely not our or Tamilians’ worry if there are ethnical issues in a sovereign country where Tamils were migrated to 100s of years back. If somebody is attacking an Indian citizen elsewhere, we have reasons to create hue and cry. I hate this stupid politics and unfortunately the center with all those vicious allies sitting there is helpless)
Cheers,
Ajith
Comment by Jo on October 28, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Rightly said Ajith. I agree with what you say and at the same time, I found this an interesting find – people join terrorist organizations worldwide in order to be part of a community, much like the reason inner-city youths join gangs in the United States.