by Erdogan Celebi December 2006 - his Thesis from the Naval Postgraduate School
Celebi's thesis focuses on the use of the Internet both in general and in the case of the Kurdish group PKK. The work is strongest in its discussion of what the author calls the training subsystem, and in his explication of that system as involving more than tradecraft and being increasingly based online. This training subsystem is seen as having four core functions:
1. The training subsystem creates, intensifies and sustains the competence, commitment and the skills that the terrorists will apply to reach their goals.Adapted from pp 21-22, with some emphasis added.2. The training subsystem not only teaches the ways and means, but also justifies them by means of intensive indoctrination.
3. The training subsystem establishes ties to the group and creates a sense of belonging.
4. The training subsystem enables knowledge to be stored inside the boundaries of the system, and facilitates its passing through generations.
Celebi's view of conditioning draws heavily on Dave Grossman's work On Killing which I discuss in relation to terrorism in my article Why Ahmed Can't Kill.
I get more out of Celebi's utilization of social network analysis and related tools (e.g. UCINET) than I do from his conclusions and prescriptions for eliminating networks of terrorist websites. On the plus site I note that the network of PKK sites he maps out is substantially the same as networks of al-Qaida sites that I have analyzed using similar methods - this despite the many differences between the two movements.
What I find missing is this: websites and networks of websites are - among other things - expressions of the degree to which certain people are committed to their particular cause. More than the readers I am speaking of the key personnel who set up and administer such sites. Any attempt to takedown a network of such sites has to target that human element in addition to targeting the sites themselves. If the admins are left at large, they will bring their sites back online or will establish new sites. Allowing them to do so for a period of time in order to expose the maximum number of individuals and assets to adverse action would seem to be a good strategy (see my comments on Morselli & Petit, 2007), but ultimately the people behind the websites need to be dealt with. In addition, so long as their is a market for extremism, there will be people who will attempt to supply the market with the sites they demand. Defeating terrorists in meatspace is the surest way to address that problem.
Posted on 27 October 2009 @ 13:16