Terrorism & Political Violence History 222 Psychology 222 Sociology 222 Political Science 222 © Copyright. William Eric Davis. All Rights Reserved.

Terrorism & Political Violence

History 222

Psychology 222

Sociology 222

Political Science 222

© Copyright. William Eric Davis. All Rights Reserved.

What Do “They” Want?

One question often asked in the wake of 9/11 is “what do they want?”

“They” refers to the radical Muslim terrorists who planned, prepared, and carried out the attack on the WTC & Pentagon.

They and many other Muslims have the same strategic goals.

Muslims march in London on February 17, 2006

Inayat Bunglawala, from the Muslim Council of Britain, told the BBC that any kind of cartoon that was derogatory to a race or group in a stereotypical way was "unacceptable".

Inayat Bunglawala called on "the governments of the Muslim world to completely sever all contact with European

governments" until they had "controlled the media".

The West (and its media) surrenders its freedom of speech and other freedoms: In essence, the Terrorists win!

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has praised Britain’s media for not publishing the Danish comic strips depicting

images of the “prophet” Mohammed.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw praised Britain’s media for not publishing the Danish comic strips depicting

images of the “prophet” Mohammed, which sparked worldwide protests by Muslims.

Straw said the decision by some European newspapers to print the cartoons was "disrespectful" and he added that freedom of speech did not mean an "open season" on

religious taboos.

But, if freedom of speech and freedom of the press does not mean the right to insult or offend, then what the hell does it

mean?

If people and the press cannot say or print anything that someone might find offensive, then the papers might as well shut down because they won’t have anything to print.

The same goes for the TV and Radio networks.

There are organizations in the US and the West that have the same philosophy: that philosophy is called “political correctness.”

It asserts that we cannot say anything that someone might be offensive. However, it is a double standard—you are perfectly free to criticize white, European and American males and to criticize Western culture.You just can’t criticize anyone else. Again, the terrorists are winning, not through their own actions but through our own.

What do “They” want?

We should also rid ourselves of the belief that Muslims are only angry about American foreign policy toward their countries or toward Israel.

Their strategic goal is to spread their radical version of Islam.

Understanding Terrorism

You do not understand something unless and until you understand it from every perspective.

We will look at it from historical perspectives, psychological perspectives, sociological perspectives, political perspectives, and other perspectives (cultural, functional, rational choice, etc).

All these approaches work best TOGETHER to explain terrorism, and developing solutions to it will require some of each as well.

FIRST FACTS

A Few Basic Facts and a few Definitions to Get Us Started

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CBRN

This is an acronym for the types of weapons that are considered Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).

Chemical

Biological

Radiological

Nuclear

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Chemical Attack by Saddam Hussein in 1988

The Nature of the CBRN Threat

The acquisition by a terrorist group of a CBRN weapon is more likely to result from theft, or by their creation of one, than from a government regime transferring it willingly.

This does not mean there is no threat that Iran, North Korea or some other nation will transfer such weapons or technology.

Many state sponsors of terrorism have the oil wealth to develop their own CBRN Programs.

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Why a Nation Might Transfer CBRN to a Terror Group

• The Regime is Irrational or Undeterrable.

• The Regime Badly Needs Money.

• Seen as effective Instrument of Foreign Policy.

These are the threats that the US has to keep close watch on.

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Unexpected & Unprepared

The 9/11 Attacks

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Recovery

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Usama bin Laden (UBL)

Also known as Osama bin Laden

September 11, 2001The “9/11” attacks were a continuation of the trends

and patterns that international terrorism had been exhibiting for the decade prior to the attacks.

The scale of the attacks and the degree of success of them were new, but the “Who”, “What, “Why”, “Where”, and even most of the “How” of the attacks were not new.

Radical Sunni Islamists were part of the religiously inspired terrorism that had been stepping up operations against the US and the West since the early 1990s.

The perpetrators were the same, the motivations were the same, the general target was the same (the US or the West).

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Groups more than States9/11 illustrated another important trend of the previous

decade: the increasing role of “groups” rather than “states” in international terrorism.

State regimes still play a role (financing, etc), no less or more important (continuity) but find it more difficult to get away with actual terrorist operations undetected than before; and are less willing to pay the high price of becoming a pariah in a globalizing world economy.

The current and future threat of terrorism will come increasingly from sub-national groups more than from states or state sponsors.

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Weak States Invite TroubleTerrorism is LESS likely to be aided by state

sponsorship than by an absence or weakness of state authority.

Lawless conditions are today the international terrorists’ best friend. It is the civilized nations’ worst enemy.

This fact explains the Summer 2006 Israel/ Lebanon war (Hezbollah exploited the Lebanese government’s weakness in establishing control over southern Lebanon).

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Increasing Transnational Terrorism

9/11 also illustrated the increasingly transnational nature of international terrorism.

The attackers were all Arab, but of many different nationalities.

The planning, financing, and coordination of the 9/11 attacks took place on 3 continents.

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Increasing Lethality

9/11 also clearly demonstrated the trend toward greater lethality (casualty rate) in terrorist operations.

The trend is even more visible if one considers what terrorists were planning to do but never succeeded in doing.

Terrorism started without a desire for a high casualty rate -- as we will see when we discuss the historical eras of terrorism.

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Misplaced attention on CBRN?

Despite the increasing attention in recent years to CBRN terrorism, the 9/11 attacks used nothing more unconventional or exotic than pilot training and box-cutter knives.

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Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi

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The US and Israel are the Primary Target of Radical Islamic Terrorists

Another trend highlighted by 9/11 is the pre-eminent place that the United States has come to occupy on the list of terrorist targets, at least among the modern Islamic terror groups. Israel is also a primary target of these groups.

The US was also the primary target of hatred for Marxist (anti-capitalist) terror groups in the 1960s & 1970s, although most of the attacks took place in Europe.

This course will explore and explain the reasons why that was and is the case. In essence, it was an attack on Western values: freedom, free markets (capitalism), materialism, and individualism.

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Suicide Bombings

Islamic Terrorists began using suicide attacks in the early 1980s and they have accelerated its use since then.

However, they did not invent the tactic, nor are they the most prolific suicide bombers – that distinction belongs to the “Tamil Tigers” of Sri Lanka (mainly a Marxist & nationalist group).

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How Arabs See The Middle East Conflict

Why Understand Terrorism?

• Public misunderstanding of terrorism result in misplaced support for policies undertaken in the name of counterterrorism.

• Misunderstanding can also mean a false sense of confidence that terrorist threats are being reduced.

• Misunderstanding It can mean disillusionment when subsequent terrorist attacks show that threats have not been reduced.

• We must understand the role of states, groups, motivations, targeting, psychology, sociology, and economics of terrorism if we are to effectively reduce it.

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Types of Human Ethnic and Racial Group Relations[In Order of Tolerance]

• Genocide

• Expulsion

• Slavery

• Segregation

• Pluralism

• Assimilation

GENOCIDE

The intentional extermination of a population defined as a “race” or a “people” (which can include religion or culture as a distinguishing characteristic).

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EXPULSION

The forcible removal of a population from a territory claimed by another.

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SLAVERY

“Ownership” of one population by another.

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SEGREGATION

Spatial and/or institutional separation of races, ethnic, or religious groups.

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PLURALISM

The retention of distinct racial and ethnic cultures combined with equal access to basic social resources.

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ASSIMILATION

The process by which a minority group blends into the common culture, defined mostly by the majority, and eventually disappears as a distinct people in the larger society.

The larger society adopts positive cultural characteristics of the culture being assimilated.

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The United States is Now PluralistDespite being the most diverse nation on Earth, the

United States has been able to achieve a very high degree of tolerance toward distinct groups.

The US suffers from very little racial, political or religious violence (despite some criminal violence).

The US was assimilationist at once time (despite segregation in the South at the same time).

Why is this? And why do homogenous (i.e., non-diverse) nations suffer from so much political or religious violence?

We should expect the opposite (where more diversity causes more violence, not less—at least as far as the US is concerned).

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The US has moved from Assimilation back to Pluralism

The United States is not a nation of assimilation anymore (when it once was).

There are political forces at work in the US that are trying to maintain distinctiveness.

Call it “political correctness”, multiculturalism, or some other label, but does it portend problems for the US in the future?

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How do we get nations to move toward the “tolerant” end of the scale?

Is it even possible? Desirable? Would it amount to cultural imperialism?

This is one topic we will cover at the end of the course, when we get to the political (policy) component of the course.

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What about the IRA, ETA, and similar groups: what do they want? Terrorists want:

1. Their own homeland (i.e., anti-colonial terrorism): like the IRA and ETA.

2. Replace a “corrupt” regime in their own country with a “righteous” one (i.e., revolutionary terrorism).

3. To replace corrupt regimes elsewhere and spread their own values which they define as “justice” (anti-capitalist, modern religious motivated terrorism).