As regards "Spy Agencies' Quest: What Makes A Terrorist?"
Investigators are still trying to determine whether Maj. Nidal Hasan's alleged deadly rampage at Fort Hood was a calculated act of radical Islamist ideology or the deranged act of an alienated loner. But even as military and law enforcement officials continue their probe, the incident has sparked a renewed focus on how Islamic extremists and al-Qaida sympathizers become radicalized in the first place. The U.S. government has focused significant intelligence resources on the question of radicalization in recent years, but they admit the dynamics are still not well understood…
I would like to submit the following for consideration:
* Terrorism is about killing. If you haven't read Dave Grossman's book On Killing, do so. See also "Why Ahmed Can't Kill", my essay in four parts on how Grossman's findings may be applied to understanding the processes that enable someone to make good on their terrorist ambitions.
* Get a copy of the RAND Corporation's "Social Science for Counterterrorism". It's a free download, and it was funded by the US Department of Defense, so many of you have already paid for it in a sense. Read it, or at least spend some quality time staring at the factor analysis diagrams.
It's time to revisit the issue of mental illness and terrorism:
* It has become a matter of counterterrorism orthodoxy that terrorists are - aside from their involvement in terrorist activity - otherwise normal people, or they are at least largely free of overt signs of clinical mental illness. (I would like to interject parenthetically that there is nothing normal about being involved in terrorism).
* This conclusion is derived in no small part from Marc Sageman's research of the first generation of al-Qaida activists. These were people who were part of a relatively tight-knit organization. The explanation of this finding is in part that the mentally ill will likely make poor team players.
* While this may be true for organizations, it may be significantly less true as one moves along the continuum from the formal terrorist organization at one end (e.g. al-Qaida Central), through the largely self-organizing groups of guys who may have some peripheral connection to or interaction with a more organized entity (e.g. the 7-7 bombers), through groups that may spawn an attack by a lone member (e.g. Mohammed Bouyeri, member of the Hofstad Group and killer of Theo van Gogh), to the opposite/disorganized end of that spectrum. At that far end we find the so-called lone wolves - individuals who appear to exist in relative isolation prior to committing a terrorist act (e.g. Maj. Hasan).
* Psychological distress up to and including clinical mental illness may not simply be likely - it may be be required - in order to make up for the decreasing levels of training, conditioning, leadership, and group support available to the aspiring terrorist operating at the highly disorganized end of the spectrum.
* Suicide is suicide, regardless of the factors which motivate it. Consider taking a good hard look at the well-known warning signs and risk factors for suicide. Even if an individual's decision to kill himself - and others in the process - is a rational one, that doesn't make it normal or any less a suicide.
* Motivation is not enough. Association, motivation, and opportunity must combine in order for someone to make good on their terrorist ambitions.
Posted on 23 November 2009 @ 10:35