Terrorists are 'normal'
 

Somehow, people still don't want to believe this. J. Post knows his stuff cold.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Winnip...pf-573300.html



Terrorists 'normal'
Suicide bombers fit their culture, psychiatrist says
By CP

TORONTO -- Suicide bombers are rational, sane people whose choice to
end their lives as they kill others is considered perfectly normal in
societies they grow up in, the Globe and Mail reported yesterday from a
southern Ontario religious conference. In a chilling analysis of what
makes a terrorist, a U.S. psychiatrist who worked for the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency said most extremists who use violence are not
emotionally disturbed.

In fact, they would be expelled from their organizations if they
appeared to be unbalanced, the Toronto Star said from Orillia, Ont.

"Most terrorists are quite normal. It's hard to understand but quite
true," Jerrold Post said Friday.

APPEAL BROADENING

Post, who interviewed terrorists in a 21-year career with the CIA,
said the appeal of suicide bombing is broadening.

The practice was once limited to very young men, a huge percentage of
them teenagers.

"Now women, mothers, have joined this pathway, and middle-aged men, a
43-year-old father," he told the Globe and Mail.

"I see it as a trend."

He said his colleagues have given up asking people why they join their
militant organizations to become suicide bombers.

"Because we would get these weird looks: 'Why do we join? Everybody is
joining. It's only the weird individuals who don't join,' " said Post,
who's now at George Washington University.

Post said suicide bombers are driven by deep despair over the forces
they see arrayed against them.

He said "psychological warfare," or education, is the most effective
weapon against terror. Young people must learn the version of Islam in
which they have been indoctrinated has nothing to do with mainstream
Islam.

Everybody is joining, its a trend, yet has nothing to do with "mainstream Islam"?

This is the point I was trying to make before. When does the exception become the rule?

I think it scares people to think that if circumstances were different, they could be participating in terrorist suicides. The spped with which evolution from the evaluation that much terrorism in Europe was a result of narcissistic 'splitting' to that which states that most terrorists are not emotionally or mentally disturbed occured is remarkable.

In my opinion, people will always prefer arguments that criminals and terrorists and their like suffer from a kind of disease which 'normal' members of the public would never have.

Solid

PS: NDD, if I'm understanding what you're saying, IMO the exception becomes the rule when the circumstances change to permit it. From my reading it seems that the most promising explanations of terrorism are primarily environmental/circumstantial and then become 'group dynamic' (group think, inward pressure etc). If the circumstances which existed to create the minority terrorist group evolve to create a majority terrorist group, the exception has become the rule. JMO.

Try explaining "Terrorist are normal" too the families of 9/11!

Solid,
I have no idea what you are talking about.

The exception becomes the rule when the frequency of occurence is greater for the exception than the rule on a consistant basis.

I keep hearing about mainstream and not all, however, the face of Islam before the non-Islamic world is consistantly that of terrorism, with a very few exceptions such as those Green Hat has metioned in his AO.

To say terrorism has nothing to do with mainstream Islam is nothing more than a PC add-in IMO.

I know not all Muslims are terrorists, anymore than all Irish are members of the IRA. But the people with the guns and bombs are making the rules at the behest of their religious leaders which are also their political leaders.

Did you ever see an Irish priest exhorting his parishoners to go out and commit these senseless acts of violence?

Did the schools in Northern Ireland teach hatred and murder of civilian non-combatants as part of their curriculum?

Did the elected leadership of the Irish encourage violence and protect those who were perpetrating it?

TR

Because it has nothing to do with 'Islam'. Also, the article is not saying that everyone is joining, only that that sentiment is expressed by a number of people who are asked (and I should caveat that most of the people asked are being detained for one reason or another, so you already have a narrow test population) Those who join PERCIEVE that what they are getting into is what everyone else is doing (though it is not). You can substitute 'Muslims' and 'terrorism' with 'inner city youth' and 'bringing guns to school' or 'fat bald white men' and 'insider trading'.

Read 'Understanding Terrorist Networks'.

**Edited to not be a snippy little bitch. This morning sucked for a number of reasons, none of which had to do with this, so my choice of commets was poor.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

I never saw it, but I read about it. Not on the same level as the current problem.

Jimbo,
I'll admit I haven't read everything you've put up. Where is the social networks theory you want me to read?

NDD:

http://www.irit.fr/COSI/training/com...complexity.htm

HTH, very interesting.

Solid

Jimbo,
One thing that occurs to me now is that for Salafism to work, it needed some basis within the Koran, no matter how tenuous. Are there equivalents for the Sword Verses in The Bible or Torah?

Thank you,

Solid

Pretty much just the book Understanding Terrorist Networks. It will address a number of issues.

While I have read all three, I know far too little about those books to begin to compare them.

Jimbo,
Why do you think so many of the essays in Walter Reich's book on the Origins of Terrorism speak of psychological imbalances as opposed to environmental pressures? What changed in the view of terrorism, or is the understanding of terrorism presented by Sageman only applicable to the Global Jihad?

Thank you,

Solid

I forget who he examined specifically, but IIRC he looked at some of the Europen terrorists in the 70s. They tended to have higher 'disturbed' percentages than the whole of terrorism.

I think this study went a long way: http://www.neuromaster.com/LOCsocpsyterrorism/

This study differs from Sageman on some of the finer points of why a person joins a group, but I think when the two need to be read to have as clear a view on the issue as possible.


Also check out:
http://psych.umb.edu/Faculty/milburn...m_textonly.htm
http://www.sais-jhu.edu/Faculty/peca...bus%206-04.pdf

the second link is the syllabus for a class I just took.