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Friday, August 1, 2008
The Worst of Both Worlds
There is a disagreement going on in the scholarly literature between two
of this country’s leading scholars of terrorism—Dr. Marc Sagemen and Professor Bruce Hoffman—that tells
us much about the contemporary terrorist threat. [Complete disclosure requires that I report that, while I do not know Dr.
Sageman personally, he and I are both associated with the Center on Terrorism at John Jay College in New York.] Dr. Sageman
has written two important books—Understanding Terror Networks and Leaderless Jihad—that emphasize
the significance of “local groups…conceiving and executing operations from the bottom up. These “homegrown”
wannabes form a scattered global network, a leaderless jihad” (the quote is from the opening paragraph of Leaderless
Jihad). Professor Hoffman wrote a scathing critique of Leaderless Jihad, arguing that Dr. Sageman was downplaying,
if not dismissing, the threat from a centralized al Qaeda and offering only a single account of the multi-layered and diverse
reality that is contemporary terrorism. I am not going to take sides in this dispute, which continued with a response by Dr.
Sageman and another reply by Professor Hoffman. All of this in the pages of the 2008 edition of the journal Foreign Affairs.
Rather I want to point out two things that this debate reveals about
the current state of the terrorist threat. First, the role of the Internet has become a crucial element for understanding
terrorism today, something virtually every current scholar acknowledges. The US invasion of Afghanistan destroyed al
Qaeda’s training camps and base of operations and at the same time international, cooperative counter-terrorism efforts
significantly disrupted their flow of money. That put an end to al Qaeda as a top-down, tightly managed organization, at least
temporary. That might have meant the end of al-Qaeda itself except that at exactly the same time, the world wide web was going
world wide. Now loose local confederations of radicalized Muslims (and other terrorist groups) throughout the world could
maintain contact, exchange information, trade inflammatory images, raise funds, network, and all the other activities central
to terrorist planning through chat-rooms, emails, text messages, and websites. No command and control from bin Laden and company
is necessary. Thus jidhadism and radical apocalyptic Christianity (to take just two examples) morphed into a “leaderless
resistance” or a movement of autonomous “self-starters.” That is Dr. Sageman’s point.
Second, more recently there is much evidence to suggest that “al
Qaeda central” is regrouping in the tribal areas of Pakistan near the Afghan border and that it is, or soon will be,
capable of the long-range planning of complex and dramatic attacks. That is Professor Hoffman’s point. So, from my perspective,
as we look forward in a few years to the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we face the worst of both worlds. We face a threat of
complicated and dramatic attacks from a regrouped al Qaeda. And we face a threat of small, tight-knit, nearly impossible
to infiltrate, groups carrying out local, but still very deadly, attacks as well.
5:45 pm edt
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May 30, 2008 - "Understanding"
Religious Terrorism
James W. Jones, Psy.D., Ph.D., Th.D.
How
much do we really know about terrorism? The short answer is "a lot" and "a very little." "Terrorism"
- as the cliché about one person’s terrorist being another’s freedom fighter suggests - is more often used
as an epithet or a bit of propaganda than a category useful for understanding. There is general agreement that terrorism is
not an end in itself or a motivation in itself (except perhaps for a few genuinely psychotic individual lone wolves). No movement
is only a terrorist movement; its primary character is more likely political, economic, or religious. Terrorism is a tactic,
not a basic type of group.
The first step in clarifying this topic of "understanding terrorism"
is to become clear about the purpose of our attempts to understand terrorism. Part of the confusion over the understanding
of terrorism results from the more basic confusion of not knowing what we want our explanations of terrorism to do for us.
Before we undertake to "explain" terrorism, we should be clear as to what we want this "explanation" to
accomplish? Many hope that understanding terrorism will help predict future terrorist actions. Others hope that it will help
devise effective counter-terrorism strategies. Will a psychological, or political, or military, or religious understanding
of religious terrorism aid in those goals?
I know from my work in forensic psychology that predicting violent behavior
in any specific case is very, very complicated and very rarely successful. And dramatic acts of violence that change the course
of history - the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand that lit the match on the conflagration of World War I, the taking
hostage of the American Embassy in the Iranian revolution, the 9/11 attack - are rarely predictable. We can list some of the
characteristics of religious groups that turn to violence and terror. I have studied some of the themes common to Muslim,
Christian, and Buddhist groups that have turned to terror. We can also outline the steps that individuals and groups often
go through in becoming committed to violent actions. The NYPD has done exactly that in a recent study. But I remain skeptical
that any model will enable us to predict with any certainty when specific individuals or groups may turn to terrorism. There
are warning signs we should be aware of. But these are signs, not determinants or predictors.
As for counter-terrorism,
it is an important strategic principal that one should know one's enemy. We succeeded in containing the expansiveness
of the former Soviet Union in part because we had a detailed and nuanced understanding of the Soviet system. Understanding
some of what is at stake religiously and spiritually for religious groups that engage in terrorism can help devise ways of
countering them. So a religious-psychological understanding of religious terrorists' motivations can be an important part
of the response to them.
In the months following 9/11 I often heard demagogues on the radio say that psychologists
(like me) who seek to understand the psychology behind religiously motivated violence simply want to "offer the terrorists
therapy." The idea that one must choose either understanding or action - that one cannot do both - is an idea that itself
borders on the pathological and represents the kind of dichotomizing that is itself a part of the terrorist mindset. Such
dichotomized thinking, wherever it occurs, is a part of the problem and not part of the solution. I worked for two years in
the psychology department at a hardcore, maximum security prison. But I never thought of that as a substitute for just and
vigorous law enforcement. Understanding an action in no way means excusing it; explaining an action in no way means condoning
it.
There is, however, a deeper issue here. Understanding others (even those who will your destruction)
can make them more human. It can break down the demonization of the other that some politicians and policy makers feel is
necessary in order to combat terrorists. The demonization of the other is a major weapon in the arsenal of the religiously
motivated terrorist. Must we resort to the same tactic - which is so costly psychologically and spiritually – in order
to oppose terrorism? Or can we counter religiously motivated terrorists without becoming like them?
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