Are Terrorists Ideologically Driven - Essay Example

Are Terrorists Ideologically Driven? On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania in the United States. This event put the threat of terrorism on the front pages of newspapers and forced it to the forefront of people’s collective conscious on a worldwide scale. It certainly was not the first act of terrorism based on ideological principles but was dramatic and impressionable. Terrorism is hardly a new concept, it has plagued Britain for almost a century, but the 9-11 attacks represented a ‘new’ type of terrorism. The IRA and Al-Qaeda have both been characterized as terrorist organisations. Though their tactics may be similar, the objectives and targets are very different. This discussion will explain the reasoning for terrorism using Al-Qaeda and the IRA as models for the ‘new’ and ‘old’ types of terrorism and illustrates the differences. It will also delve into the psyche of the terrorist so as to gain a better understanding of why an otherwise rational individual would offer themselves as a martyr for an ideological cause. According to U.S. President George Bush, the Islamic terrorists ‘hate us because of our freedoms.’ This, of course, is faulty, simplistic reasoning much the same as the logic he used to promote his ‘Global War on Terrorism’ which has served only to increase terrorist attacks. The U.S. approach to terrorism is examined and explains how the Bush administration policies and actions have encouraged a worsening of what was previously an unacceptable global situation. Most terrorists feel that they are doing nothing wrong when they kill and injure people, or damage property. Most seem to share a feature of a psychological condition known as anti-social personality disorder or psychopathic personality disorder, which is an absence of empathy for the suffering of others – they don’t feel other people’s pain. However, they do not appear unstable or mentally ill. Someone who is mentally ill may want to commit an act of terror, but as most terrorism requires cooperating with others, this makes it less likely that a mentally ill person will actually carry out such an act because of the difficulty they have in working with others. Terror groups usually dislike or distrust those who wish to join them, who appear to be unstable. “It is very rare to find a terrorist who suffers from a clinically defined ‘personality disorder’ or who could in any other way be regarded as mentally ill or psychologically deviant” (Silke, 1998). It is not a coincidence that many terrorists come from places where peace is not the norm; places like the Middle East or Northern Ireland, where all the present generation of young people have known is regular, extreme, well-publicised violence. Violence could be the norm for such young people, whether it is on a wide scale or within a smaller community or family. It may come to be considered the normal response to achieve objectives. The process of becoming a terrorist is primarily an issue of socialisation. The move from being disaffected to becoming an active terrorist is usually precipitated by a catalyst” (Silke, 2001). Most sociologists believe in nurture not nature and see terrorists as driven by political ideology and political grievances. Terrorists are often the products of overly permissive, wealthy families with whom they were in conflict, had inconsistent mothering, or were isolated from others. A useful avenue for research may be to look at some aspects of terrorist behaviour as reflecting an immature form of thinking or moral reasoning. Kaplan (1981) assumes that terrorist behaviour is pathological. He differentiates between the reasons and causes of terrorism by proposing that reasons are the social variables that facilitate terrorism or help rationalize terrorist behavior. However, he says that the causes of terrorist behavior “must be sought in the psychopathology of the assassin” (Kaplan, 1981: 36). He proposes that terrorists have a pathological need to pursue absolute ends. Kaplan proposed that this is an overreaction to childhood experiences of humiliation at the hands of an aggressor, which results in a sense of failure and lack of self-esteem. Thus, their personality is defective and cannot cope with life stress through socially appropriate means. Research suggests that suicide bombers often come from broken families and he also proposes that they suffer from low self-esteem. Group dynamics demonstrates how the group becomes the sole source of support and friendship. The individual’s sense of belonging, sense of purpose, perhaps even their sense of identity, is derived from the relationships within the group. Social networks are also important in the recruitment of new members into violent Islamic fundamentalist groups, including al-Qaeda. About 70 percent of terrorists had joined while they were living as expatriates in other countries, looking for jobs and education. Prior to moving they were not strongly religious, but while in their new countries they visited mosques and moved in with other Islamic expatriates. Some of the latter were already members of terror organizations who then recruited them into those organizations. Sageman (2004) proposes that the social networks of friends, formed while these young men were uprooted from their home environment, provide the backbone of the violent Islamic groups. This is a long-standing Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis model within psychology that has been used to explain aggression or violent behaviour generally. Much terrorist behavior is a response to the frustration of various political, economic, and personal needs or objectives: “... their violent acts stem from feelings of rage and hopelessness engendered by the belief that society permits no other access to information-dissemination and policy-formation processes” (Knutson, 1984). While this model cannot provide a complete explanation – aggressive behavior is not always preceded by frustration of a significant need – it is undoubtedly relevant in some cases. Behaviorist models are based on the concept that most terrorists are heroes to someone and, according to this model, such reinforcement increases the likelihood of terrorist behavior. Suicide terrorists often are labeled crazed cowards bent on senseless destruction who thrive in the midst of poverty and ignorance. The obvious course becomes to hunt down terrorists while simultaneously transforming their supporting cultural and economic environment from despair to hope. What research there is, however, indicates that suicide terrorists have no appreciable psychopathology and are at least as educated and economically well off as their surrounding populations. Suicide terrorists generally are not lacking in legitimate life opportunities relative to their general population. As the Arab press emphasizes, if martyrs had nothing to lose, sacrifice would be senseless. Suicide terrorists apparently span their population’s normal distribution in terms of education, socioeconomic status, and personality type (introvert vs. extrovert). Mean age for bombers was early twenties. Almost all were unmarried and expressed religious beliefs before recruitment (but no more so than did the general population). Except for being young, unattached males, suicide bombers differ little from members of violent racist organizations with whom they are often compared (Ezekiel, 1995). Many of the aforementioned models can be used to explain the rationale and, to some degree, motivations for the ‘new’ terrorist can be applied to ‘old’ terrorists as well but the execution and circumstances differs significantly. The IRA is an organization predominantly comprised of Catholics but its motives are not religious in nature. They have not been engaged in a Jihad (Holy War) with Britain but a dispute regarding national sovereignty. The IRA views Britain as an occupying force who has wrought great brutalities on the Irish people and property for many decades and has sought to return the Irish isle to Irish rule, give Ireland back to the Irish so to speak. Part of the motivations for the Islamic terrorists includes imperialistic provocations as well. They do not want U.S. military bases built on Muslim Holy Lands. Though similar, the IRA-British conflict has had a different dynamic because of length of time endured and the proximity of nations involved. Both the IRA and Al-Qaeda possess a deep-seeded hatred of foreign occupiers treading on their homeland, an emotion that is certainly reasonable, but the tactics used to fight this occupation has been very dissimilar. For example, when Islamic terrorists attacked London, innocent people were targeted and no warning given. When the IRA attacked London, “at least they gave warnings and they tried not to kill civilians” (Jackson, 2005). Historically speaking, the IRA has targeted armed British installations though many innocent civilians have been caught in the crossfire of the ‘Irish revolution.’ Al-Qaeda and Islamic suicide bombers, by contrast, deploy their tactics, in large part, based on where it will gain the most publicity regardless of who is killed, maimed or psychologically destroyed. Islamic terrorists possess a hatred of Western societies in general which extends well beyond the intolerance Catholics feel for Protestants. “While the IRA was reprehensible and ruthless, and their behavior mostly inexcusable, their twenty-year reign of violence cannot be compared to Islam. Muslim terrorists have killed an average of 400 people per day over the past 50 years. So over the same period of time, Islam out-murdered the Catholics 1,725 to one” (“Irish Republican Army”, 2006). Al-Qaeda’s attempt to cause massive destruction would serve all the traditional purposes of terrorism: symbolism, propaganda and psychological impact, irrespective of the failure or success of the mission. There’s a faulty premise in the current strategy on the war on terrorism, that suicide terrorism and Al Qaeda suicide terrorism in particular is mainly driven by an evil ideology, Islamic fundamentalism, independent of other circumstances. However, the facts are that since 1980, of the suicide terrorist attacks around the world over half have been secular. What over 95 percent of suicide attacks around the world are about is not religion, but a specific strategic purpose – to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland or prize greatly. This is in fact a centerpiece of Al Qaeda’s strategic logic, which is to compel the United States and Western countries to abandon military commitments on the Arabian Peninsula. Suicide terrorists are not mainly depressed, lonely individuals on the margins of society. University of Chicago’s Professor Richard Pape studied 462 suicide terrorists from around the world since 1980 (cited in O’Brien, 2005). Few fit the standard stereotype of a depressed, lonely individual on the margins of society. Half of those 462 are secular and therefore not religious fanatics. For most suicide terrorists they hate Western values or they hate being immersed in Western society. What we have evidence for time and again across the spectrum is that they are deeply angered by military policies, especially foreign combat troops on territory that they prize. Invariably, they believe they have no other means to change those policies (O’Brien, 2005). Al-Zarqawi himself had explained this strategic logic in his famous letter to Osama bin Laden in January 2004. In that letter he said that he intended to focus suicide attacks on security organs of the Iraqi Government and Western agents in Iraq, which in fact he has done in the last two years, and he said he was doing that because they were the eyes, ears and hands of the American occupier (O’Brien, 2005). Although many Americans had hoped that Al Qaeda had been badly weakened by American counterterrorism efforts since September 11, 2001, the facts indicate otherwise. Since 2002, Al Qaeda has carried out over 15 suicide and other terrorist attacks killing nearly 700 people, more than all of the years before 9/11 combined. Although many have hoped that American counter-terrorism efforts would have weakened Al Qaeda by the measure that counts the ability of the group to kill Westerners, Al Qaeda is stronger today than before 9/11. Terrorists have not been fundamentally weakened but have changed course and achieved significant success (Pape, 2005). Bin Laden hoped the U.S. would timidly withdraw from the Middle East, but he appears to have been aware that an aggressive U.S. response to 9/11 was entirely possible. In that case, he had a Plan B: al-Qaeda hoped to draw the U.S. into a debilitating guerrilla war in Afghanistan and do to the U.S. military what they had earlier done to the Soviets. Al-Zawahiris recent message shows that he still has faith in that strategy. The U.S. cleverly outfoxed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, using air power and local Afghan allies (the Northern Alliance) to destroy the Taliban without many American boots on the ground. Ironically, however, the Bush administration then went on to invade Iraq for no good reason, where Americans faced the kind of wearing guerrilla war they had avoided in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda has succeeded in several of its main goals. It had been trying to convince Muslims that the United States wanted to invade Muslim lands, humiliate Muslim men, and rape Muslim women. Most Muslims found this charge hard to accept. The Bush administration’s Iraq invasion, along with the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, was perceived by many Muslims to validate bin Laden’s wisdom and foresight. Following the invasion of Iraq, bin Laden has become more popular than George W. Bush even in a significantly secular Muslim country such as Turkey. This is a bizarre finding, a weird turn of events that should never have been the case regardless of how inept and incompetent Bush has handled his war on terror. Turks didn’t start out with such an attitude. It grew up in reaction against U.S. policies. Although the United States and its Pakistani ally have captured significant numbers of al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a whole new generation of angry young Muslim men has been produced. Al-Qaeda has moved from being a concrete cell-based terrorist organization to being an ideal and a model, for small local groups in Casablanca, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and elsewhere. The U.S. is not winning the war on terror. Al-Qaeda also has by no means won. But across a whole range of objectives, al-Qaeda has accomplished more of its goals than the U.S. has of its own (Cole, 2004). The IRA did not achieve its ultimate goal of a united Ireland but thanks to political efforts on both sides of the issue, the terrorist attacks have greatly subsided. The same type of political reasonableness would be of use regarding Islamic terror but one hopes that it will not take a century to attain. The ‘War on Terrorism’ as it is commonly referred to, is a phrase coined by United States government officials and is primarily used to justify the military initiative de jour. It is generally defined as the current conflict between the U.S. and radical Islamic factions with Great Britain being somewhat allied in the effort (Gallington, 2004). The ultimate culmination of the rhetoric and selective legal reasoning regarding the ‘War on Terror’ was Bush’s order of the U.S. military to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan, an illegal act on many fronts. Bush has constantly maintained that these actions against sovereign countries were legal. First, he argues, because of existing language within the UN Security Council resolutions on Iraq, which is also publicly espoused by the British government and secondly, the invasions are an act of self-defence which international law permits. The illegal war in Iraq has caused terrorist attacks to increase as well as the loss of many thousands of Iraqi and American lives and as a consequence has cost the U.S. dearly as far as international respect. In President Bush’s handling of the war on terror, two facts stand out: Before September 11, he failed to take military action against an enemy that had attacked us, and later, he took military action against an enemy that had not attacked first. The invasion of Iraq, which never had anything to do with fighting terrorism, has provided fresh examples of U.S. brutality for al-Qaeda recruiters. The previously high-level of hatred that the vast majority of Middle East citizens had for Western nations has expanded exponentially since 2003 which has led to an increased number of terrorist attacks. Counting only the number of what is labeled as ‘significant terrorist attacks’ the number swelled from about 208 in 2003 to 651 in 2004 more than 11,000 in 2005 and at least 14,300 in 2006 (“Terror Attacks Worldwide”, 2007). The couple of hundred attacks that took place worldwide the first year of the war has now ballooned to several thousand. If the Bush/Blair convoluted policies designed to fight terror are allowed to continue, this number is likely to continue its climb. Governments stop terrorism first of all by stopping their own forms of terrorism. Nations cannot fight terrorism by becoming terrorists. They cannot end terrorism by using the methods of terrorism to bomb and kill Iraqis, to occupy Iraq, to support the terrorist occupation of the Palestinians, and to hold the world hostage with nuclear weapons. The allies must first bring the troops home from Iraq, fund nonviolent democratic peacemakers in Iraq, send food and medicine to Iraq, support United Nations’ nonviolent peacemaking solutions, end world hunger immediately, cut all U.S. military aid everywhere, dismantle every one of our nuclear weapons, fund jobs, education and healthcare at home and abroad, clean up the environment and teach nonviolence to everyone around the world, beginning at home in every U.S. and British classroom. Violence cannot stop violence. Nations must break the cycle of violence, renounce violence, start practicing creative active nonviolence on a level that the world has never seen, and reach out and embrace the world’s poor by meeting their every need. Then, “we will win over the world, and no one will ever want to hurt a Westerner again” (Dear, 2005). Significant policy changes that the United States should pursue on both moral and pragmatic grounds – withdrawing all military forces from the Middle East and ending reflexive support for the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine – would lessen the threat of worldwide terrorism immediately. If the current policies continue, the terrorist attacks will continue as well causing not only bodily damage but political damage as well which could last for hundreds or thousands of years. Terrorism is a fact of life but does not have to be at today’s levels. References Cole, Juan. (September 13, 2004). “Bin Laden’s Vision Becoming Reality.” Antiwar.com. Retrieved 20 May 2007 from Dear, John. (July 10, 2005). “How to Stop Terrorism.” CommonDreams.org. Retrieved 20 May 2007 from Ezekiel, R. (1995). The Racist Mind. New York: Viking. Gallington, Daniel J. (2004). “The U.N. and the War on Terror.” The Washington Times. Retrieved 20 May 2007 from “Irish Republican Army.” (2006). Prophet of Doom. Retrieved 20 May 2007 from Jackson, Andra. (August 5, 2005). “Bombings not like IRA’s: Sinn Fein Veteran.” The Age Company Ltd. Retrieved 20 May 2007 from Kaplan, A. (1981). “The Psychodynamics of Terrorism.” Behavioral and Quantitative Perspectives on Terrorism. Y. Alexander & J. Gleason (Eds.). New York: Pergamon. Knutson, J. N. (1984). “Toward a United States Policy on Terrorism.” Political Psychology. Vol. 5, N. 2, pp. 287-294. O’Brien, Kerry. (July 20, 2005). “US ‘Misread Motivation’ of Suicide Bombers.” The 7:30 Report. 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