Terrorism reading list

[welsh]

So you're thinking about terrorism? Who are these guys? Why do they keep blowing shit up when they really just need to get laid?

Some books you might want to look at-

Al-Qaeda

How jihad went freelance
Jan 31st 2008
From The Economist print edition

Al-Qaeda has evolved from a single group to an amorphous movement. Does that make it less dangerous or more so?

Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century
By Marc Sageman University of Pennsylvania Press; 208 pages; $24.95 and £16.50

The Five Front War: The Better Way to Fight Global Jihad
By Daniel Byman Wiley; 320 pages; $25.95 and £13.99

Global Political Islam By Peter Mandaville Routledge; 408 pages; $43.95 and £21.99

TERRORISTS are a bit like you and me, or so Marc Sageman suggests. It might be comforting to think that angry young Islamists are crazed psychopaths or sex-starved adolescents who have been brainwashed in malign madrassas. But Mr Sageman, a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, explodes each of these myths, and others besides, in an unsettling account of how al-Qaeda has evolved from the organisation headed by Osama bin Laden into an amorphous movement—a “leaderless jihad”.

Mr Sageman is a leading advocate of what is called the “buddy” theory of terrorism. He has spent much time asking why well-educated young men, from middle-class backgrounds, often with a secular education and wives and children, become suicide bombers. He suggests that radicalisation is a collective rather than an individual process in which friendship and kinship are key components.

Which is consistent with patterns elsewhere. Poor peasants may become revolutionaries, but terrorists are usually middle class, college educated folks who have been radicalized.

The process has four stages. The initial trigger is a sense of moral outrage, usually over some incident of Muslim suffering in Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya or elsewhere. This acquires a broader context, becoming part of what Mr Sageman calls a “morality play” in which Islam and the West are seen to be at war. In stage three, the global and the local are fused, as geopolitical grievance resonates with personal experience of discrimination or joblessness. And finally the individual joins a terrorist cell, which becomes a surrogate family, nurturing the jihadist world-view and preparing the initiate for martyrdom. Many Muslims pass through the first three phases; only a few take the final step.

Interesting. Wonder why the terrorists keep blowing shit up in Europe and have relatively been absent in the US? Could it be that European society has a knack for fostering this pattern?

Mr Sageman has unusual credentials: a former CIA officer, he is also a forensic psychiatrist and a counter-terrorism consultant. He published the first version of his theory three years ago in an influential book, “Understanding Terror Networks”. His aim, to put the study of this new kind of terrorism on to a scientific footing, has not changed. But al-Qaeda has, and the task of analysing it has become more complex.

In his new book Mr Sageman's sample of militants has grown from 172 to 500. He gives more prominence to Europe, where, after the London and Madrid bombings and other thwarted attempts, a new front-line has opened up. He devotes a chapter to the internet. Crucially, he argues that most of today's suicide bombers have little or no link with the original al-Qaeda (dubbed “al-Qaeda central”) but are part of a broader, more amorphous phenomenon which he calls the “al-Qaeda social movement”. Mr Sageman is sceptical of the view, which gathered weight last year, that “al-Qaeda central” is resurgent. Rather, it is the mutual attraction of freelance jihadists, outraged by the Iraq war and increasingly mobilised online, which should worry us most.

Truth is that a terrorist attack is a rather cheap enterprise. It costs little in money. The trick is to get the manpower.

Like others, Mr Sageman believes the Iraq war, which appeared to legitimise the idea of a rapacious West in conflict with Islam, was a spectacular own-goal for America. Unless that idea can be successfully countered, he says, America may find itself confronting not just a terrorist fringe but a substantial segment of the Muslim world, which would intensify and prolong the conflict to disastrous effect. A successful hearts-and-minds campaign, on the other hand, would stiffen moderate spines and help take the glory out of jihadism; eventually, “the leaderless jihad [would] expire, poisoned by its own toxic message.” It is an optimistic conclusion, given all that has gone before.

But not without precedent. Afterall, the violent anarchist movement largely died out from repression and the challenge of a more militant left, but more importantly, a lack of popularity.

There is much common ground between Mr Sageman and Daniel Byman, a counter-terrorism expert at Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution who was at one time on the staff of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission). He too laments the Bush administration's lack of a coherent strategy, the needless alienation of allies, the failure to win Muslim hearts and minds, and the deadly fall-out from Iraq. Both authors believe that in the war of ideas Americans should focus on jihadist brutality rather than trying to burnish their own image. Both regard Europe as the main battleground, and they also question just how useful democratisation can be as a tool of counter-terrorism; indeed Mr Sageman believes it is entirely irrelevant.

It could be worse as democracy actually allows social groups to challenge each other.

But interesting- Europe is the battleground, not the middle east.

Mr Byman argues that America must do better on five fronts: the military, the war of ideas, intelligence, homeland defence and, in a nuanced way, democratic reform. Many of his policy proposals are eminently sensible, though some people will decry his advocacy of Israeli-style targeted killings. But where Mr Sageman is plain spoken, Mr Byman is often hesitant and diffuse. He has a disconcerting knack of undercutting his own arguments. Moreover, his remorseless concentration on prescription, with a minimum of explanatory background, will put off all but the most dedicated experts.

Counter-terror specialists are seldom knowledgeable about the intricacies of modern Islam, and vice versa. Those looking for a reliable guide to the currents of political Islam, of which al-Qaeda-style jihadism is but one, could do worse than turn to a young American scholar, Peter Mandaville, an associate professor at George Mason University, near Washington, DC. Mr Mandaville's primer, “Global Political Islam”, is a well-informed account of the origins of mainstream Islamism, the strategies of Islamisation, the emergence of the radical fringe, the competition for authority among Muslim elites and the impact of globalisation on Muslim politics. This is a study which sets out to transcend the “narrow moment” of al-Qaeda. Given our current obsession with global jihad, this book is a welcome companion to Mr Sageman's work.

Your thoughts?

 

[Mord_Sith]

Personally, I know I'm not nuts enough to blow myself up for a smoke and mirror's ploy, however with the increase in school shootings (or the news reaching the public of them whichever is true) and the constant bombing in Europe and the middle east I would say that Europe, while it plays a significant part, is not the main battleground.

I would go so far as to suggest trying to go for the metaphorical head, try to break down the Islam extremists propagating this mentality throughout their people and the net by showing how daft it is to blow yourself up for this rubbish.

The biggest problem I have is that a lot of people in North America seem to think that the entire Muslim community is poisoned with this trash, there have even been Lutheran churches in Canada that have made the association between the Muslim faith and 'terrorism', my parents actually left said church because they did that among other ignorant things.

However I seriously hate the way Terrorism is being used all over the place, it's Radical Fanaticism at this point, usually Terrorism is a method of extortion rather than just pure killing for a belief, so the modern concept of Terrorism is just a buzz-word that does the equivalent social effect as communism during the mid fifties cold war period.

Anyways that's my rant done

 

[SuAside]

no time to read all that, but each time i read americans saying something about Al Qaeda as an organisation, it makes me sick.

Al Qaeda never existed as an organisation an sich, it was created by the US media (which in turn is likely motivated by both hype and political agenda). they put a badge on it and extremists realised the power of it and ran with it.

the US cant cut off the head of the Al Qaeda organisation simply because there is no such thing as global leadership... and as such there is very little to trace back to the 'leaders'.

do note however that i'm not saying Bin Laden & buddies are innocents, far from it, but please, stop blowing this shit out of proportions...

 

[Mord_Sith]

I don't believe I mentioned Al Qaeda at all in my post, I said Muslim extremists, and I said to go after the ones propagating the 'let's blow ourselves up for our cause' mentality by trying to show just how ridiculous it is to do so.

Hell even the Irish Extremists have more sense and try to live to do it again!

 

[bazola]

To me the war(s) in Iraq give terrorists the exact ammunition they need to convince others to attack the west. We go there, we kill the people we think are in the wrong, end of story. Ignorance at its best.

I mean honestly I don't understand how the west can dominate the middle east (talking ww1-2 here), and pick the borders, and when things go wrong, try to enforce the borders that they created in the first place. The fact that palestinians don't have sovereignty in 2008 of the small chunk of land they still have left is disgusting. Its more disgusting that you still can't even be for a palestinian state in the US without giving off terrorist vibes.

The right has been capitalizing on this issue in order to instill fear and gain votes, for far too long.

 

[Chacotay]

Al-Queda was just the "enemy" that the US came up with as an excuse to invade Iraq. Apparently this "threat" could be quelled.

Guess they were wrong

 

[xdarkyrex]

AL-Qaeda is a smaller splinter of the group known as "Anonymous"

haha.

 

[welsh]

Ok, hold on.

To say that Al Qaeda never existed or is a fantasy of the US is complete bullshit.

Al qaeda has a long history that dates back to the Soviet-Afgan war. Much of Al Qaeda's success was due to clever marketing by Osama Bin Laden to raise money for Mujahedeen, mostly arabs, to fight the Soviets.

Once finished, Osama had this capital and labor and began moving about, from Yemen to Sudan and then back to Afghanistan. The US tried to nail him during the Clinton years and came close a few times. In fact the Clinton administration warned the Bush admin that Osama would be the big problem in the early years of the administration and advised the Bush admin to go after the guy. But Bush & Co. had other ideas.

So yeah, these guys exist and their fucking bad. There is a long history of this organization. Sorry, its not fantasy.

How bad Al Qaeda is, I don't know. They seem to be taking a beating in Iraq. When the should have been stopped in Afganistan the Bush Co. decided to use the US desire for a little payback to go for war in Iraq. That probably made matters much worse.

But these guys did hit the US, not once but a few times.

As far as I am concerned, every one of these rat fucks should burn for it.

 

[Loxley]

Ph34r the dangerous terrorists in Europe. I know I have posted this before, but it fits just to well to not put into the context.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7fPu-ywN00[/Youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9WdXqLpqDI&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNoToARzqc4[/youtube]

 

[Carib FMJ]

Al-Qaeda is taking a beating iN Iraq, but they are far from done, They launched a well coordinated attack all across Baghdad... and my unit, including yours truly got caught in a pretty bitter skirmish that lasted several hours. No it wasn't the battle of Mogadishu, but it was damn intense.

 

[SuAside]

I don't believe I mentioned Al Qaeda at all in my post, I said Muslim extremists, and I said to go after the ones propagating the 'let's blow ourselves up for our cause' mentality by trying to show just how ridiculous it is to do so.

maybe, just maybe the post wasnt directed at you then?

whowouldvethunkit?

Ok, hold on.

To say that Al Qaeda never existed or is a fantasy of the US is complete bullshit.

you'll note i never said that they didn't exist or that they were a fantasy...

just that they're blown out of proportion and that due to giving it such extensive media coverage you only made it grow.

i suppose you could compare it with the fanclub of some sportsteam. clubs usually have an official fanclub, this is the true form of Al-Qaeda. it is organised and funded by the members. usually, it really aint that huge. however, there are a lot of people who are fans too, but not member of said official fanclub. now due to increased media exposure, you'll give the fanclub more and more perceived power and thus even more fans will turn up. they wont by any means be true members, but they'll carry the same ideals.

it's bullshit to say Al Qaeda was worldwide and uber powerful. you'll note that for instance "the Al Qaeda of the Maghreb" are basically just Algerian terrorists that renamed themselves that after Al Qaeda became popular. it's simply for fearmongering, as they dont even have the same goals as Al Qaeda does! yet, the media keeps covering them as Al Qaeda, fueling even more fear of some mythical beast... the falg doesn't cover the load!

As far as I am concerned, every one of these rat fucks should burn for it.

funny, if you'll recalls quite a few of the older rat fucks were HEROES OF THE FREE WORLD when fighting ruskies during the cold war.

how quickly things can turn, right?

 

[Loxley]

funny, if you'll recalls quite a few of the older rat fucks were HEROES OF THE FREE WORLD when fighting ruskies during the cold war.

I think the term was. "moral equivalent of our founding fathers"

 

[Pablosdog]

The fact is, yes Al queda exists, they've been around for a very long time. But we are partially responsible for there actions. They are CIA trained operatives. First mistake. Brought up with an ignorance and hatred for america, this is due to our harsh treatments and well..pissing all over the middle east. Second mistake. We are allied with Isreal and well, support the bulldozing of palastinian houses, and well, isreal has an almost general anti-islamic tension going for it.

 

[welsh]

I'll stick with my sentiment that "those rat fucks should burn in hell." But I'm getting old and us old guys hold onto bitterness. I'm still thinking about 9-11, about the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and a lot of dead people.

I recall back then talking to a friend that a lot more innocent people would be dead before this is all over and that it would probably lead to an intervention in Iraq- although I didn't think they connected.

I will also agree that Al qaeda is slippery and almost a phantom organization. Terrorist groups can use the name to draw attention to themselves and draw support (people and money) to their cause. Saying one is Al Qaeda has symbolic meaning.

Yes, Al Qaeda grew out of the war in Afghanistan and I agree, the US screwed the pooch. Not necessarily by supporting Al Qaeda, because we really didn't. What we did was give operational management to Pakistani intelligence. Granted that was because the Pakis didn't want the US to run its own operations out of Pakistan and Pakistan was/is a US ally.

However, Paki intelligence had concerns in Afghanistan, but they also had their own interests in Kashmir. Militants they could train for Afghan resistance could be used in Kashmir. End result, US support went both ways. That US aid got caught up in messy local politics is one of the problems with giving military aid to insurgents.

But even then, lets be fair. The Saudi government matched US funding for the Mujahadeen fighters. Add that, Mujahadeen fighters were also capable of raising money from devout Muslims eager to fulfill their Islamic obligations to provide charity to Muslim causes.

And that's were Osama got his power- by milking the Afghan war to raise money for his own goals. The war and his own contacts allowed Osama to market himself, to raise money and gain followers. Consequently, Osama turned terrorism into a new form of NGO.

Since 9-11, Al Qaeda has evolved into something else. A monolithic organization- probably not. A social movement- perhaps.

As dangerous as we think? Grossly over-exaggerated? I don't know. Since 9-11 Al Qaeda and those who ally themselves to their purposes have succeeded in terrorist attacks in Spain, England, the US and elsewhere.

 

[Ah-Teen]

You mean these people aren't brainwashed mindless killers?

No shit...

They still need to be destroyed.

But hey, right now I feel like gassing a nazi so everything I'm writing is kinda based on that.

 

[SuAside]

As dangerous as we think? Grossly over-exaggerated? I don't know. Since 9-11 Al Qaeda and those who ally themselves to their purposes have succeeded in terrorist attacks in Spain, England, the US and elsewhere.

pffft.

how many people died in europe? barely a few hundred. how many in the US? a few thousand.

considering that in Belgium, a country with 10 million inhabitants, smoking causes 22500 deaths a year, of which 2500 are strictly for passive smokers (i.e. people that do not smoke, but are exposed anyway), i consider smokers a far greater health hazard than i do terrorists, ye know. i think many people fail to put things into perspective. (smoking obviously just being a stupid example, but you get the drift)

all in all, the american's response to the WTC crap was pretty retarded, i think. if Israel responded in equal terms to terrorism as the US did, the middle east would now be a glass desert.

but dont misunderstand me, what happened was horrible and sad, and should never have happened.

edit: typo few->far

 

[Sorrow]

Exactly - the whole terrorism thing is blown out of the proportions.
Which is the point of terrorism - they spend a bit of money to kill less people than die in car accidents each years and media and authorities get hysterical - start spending much more money on defence against terrorism, take away our freedoms, etc.
Meanwhile people die, because big money that are spent on "war against terror" can't be spend on health care and soon it turns out that our governments become what they fought against.

 

[welsh]

I agree with the notion that this thing has been blown out of proportion. A War on Terrorism is illogical, especially if you can't even define it. To me it should have been dealt with as a crime against humanity and the terrorists punished as if they are criminals. If those criminals are harbored by a state, than the state is also responsible for its crimes. If the state was knowingly involved, then the state gets punished as well as if it were an act of war.

But you cannot declare war against a noun nor can you declare war against non-state actors. You can, however, punish them under law.

And Suaside, you're right. The analogy with tobacco is complete bullshit. Your argument is basically 20K people of smoking, why do we care about 200? So if 20K decide to off themselves by smoking, don't those 200 who didn't have value? Did they deserve to be killed by some ideological whacko? Should the state just write them off?

That shit don't float. Someone comes into your country and murders people, a state has an obligation to go after and bring them to justice. Otherwise, anyone can take law and order into their own hands and get away with it. The act of terrorism committed by non-nationals is a crime against the national sovereignty of a state, and a state has an obligation to stop it, if not just to protect human life but to defend its sovereign power.

That said, the costs of terrorism is not just in human lives. Its also in the ransoms paid by nationals, business and even states to terrorists in order to avoid a terrorist hit. Its in the ability of terrorists to use extortion to achieve their gains.

If we understand the state as a protection racket, than in a democracy, society should tame that protection racket. But with terrorists we have people who use extortion for their own purposes. That they color it in ideological language- supportive of either a religion, a political belief system or a nationalist cause- is irrelevant.

They act in a way that uses violence as a means to an ends by creating fear in their targets. That terrorists often commit murder is a secondary goal. Their primary operational goals are to spread fear in bystanders and observers. The target in 9-11 was not so much the people in the towers, but the people on the ground who saw those towers fall and the people fall to their deaths.

But that's not that different from a mafia capo using fear to further his ends. Extortion, protection rackets, blackmail, coercion- those are weapons of mafias as well as terrorists. Mafias, at least, act as economic predators. Terrorists try to hide their actions as legitimate political actions.

Bullshit.

Terrorists deserve no more right than pirates. Like pirates they should be hunted down and killed. They are non-sovereign actors who use violence to obtain their ends. As such they deserve no rights under law and, like pirates, should be hung. Like pirates, they are fundamentally criminals. And like in piracy, those states that harbor terrorists are quality as accomplices to those crimes.




Does it matter? Yes.

 

[SuAside]

And Suaside, you're right. The analogy with tobacco is complete bullshit. Your argument is basically 20K people of smoking, why do we care about 200? So if 20K decide to off themselves by smoking, don't those 200 who didn't have value? Did they deserve to be killed by some ideological whacko? Should the state just write them off?

it's not about writing off anyone. it's about putting things into proportion.

thousands of innocent americans die each year from second hand smoke. but just because it's much less obvious or much less hyped, the US doesn't exactly do much to move against that (bar a few local initiatives).

funny how two crashing towers and three thousand killed can start initiatives costing billions, while much higher deathtolls are simply ignored.

do note once again that i'm not saying that the US shouldn't have reacted... quite the contrary, i'm a supporter of the war in Afghanistan.

 

[Sorrow]

I agree with the notion that this thing has been blown out of proportion. A War on Terrorism is illogical, especially if you can't even define it. To me it should have been dealt with as a crime against humanity and the terrorists punished as if they are criminals. If those criminals are harbored by a state, than the state is also responsible for its crimes. If the state was knowingly involved, then the state gets punished as well as if it were an act of war.

Speaking of which...
All violent crime should be treated as a crime against humanity...
And eradicated.