Terrorism is Thug Advertising

Wars, Crimes, and Underpants Bombers
03/02/10 - Cato at Liberty by Julian Sanchez

The common question: Why do Islamic extremists spend their time and resources attacking the US and our people? What is in it for them?

One explanation is hate. They don't mind sacrificing their men to suicide bombings, or enduring our counter-terrorist operations that kill their leaders, as long as it shakes up The West and the US. But, there is much hate in the world, and most organizations and countries are not attacking in that way. So, hate is a plausible explanation, but doesn't leave me satisfied.

The following insight seems right to me. They attack us as a form of thug advertising, to build their organizations.

Sanchez [edited]: The claim that "we are at war" seems to be a statement that "we are very, very serious about national security". This self-esteem boosting ritual has a cost.

Jihadis primarily want to impose their rigid vision in the Muslim world, and to depose rulers perceived as corrupt or too secular. (See "The Far Enemy" by Fawaz Gerges.)   Their decision to strike “the Far Enemy” in the United States is not motivated by blind bloodlust or a desire to kill Americans as an end in itself. Their decision is generally unpopular, even among radical Islamists.

Al Qaeda had been perceived within jihadi circles as a marginal organization. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri hoped that a titanic conflict between Islam and the West would revive the jihadi movement and enhance the prestige of Al Qaeda. This has largely backfired

Terrorism is primarily a symbolic act. Terror groups execute sensational attacks as PR stunts. They don’t love blowing up airplanes; they do it to establish their own credibility versus more locally-focused Islamist groups. They compete with both violent and peaceful groups for recruits.

Our response to these attacks will often have a military component. But, we should not treat Al Qaeda as if it were a belligerent foreign state. A big show supports their advertising and outreach efforts. We should treat Abdulmutallab and his cohorts as just one more band of thugs, when this is compatible with our intelligence gathering and security goals.

Personal Experience of Terrorism

Storm Windows
05/02/09 - Cara Ellison

An experience of the 9/11/2001 attack on New York. An excerpt.

That was it. Everything was gone.

He knew this on some instinctive level, though he had no time to really understand what that meant. He rolled from underneath an SUV, jelly-legs, and looked around.

The building would not stop collapsing. It came down, then the giant clouds of dust, coffee cups, motherboards, phones, people, a burning Pompeii in the sky. Now the air was full of dust lighter than air, floating on the currents. When he rubbed his eyes, they stung. He tasted gritty metal in his mouth, and he spat on the ground.
. . .
It was all gone. His wife. His job. He tried to wash off the dust. The dust was in his nose, in the seashell curves of his ear, between his teeth, under his fingernails, in his hair. He lifted his face to the stream of water.

Gaza's Rocket Scientists

Gaza has its version of rocket scientists
01/03/09 - NationalReview by MarkSteyn

[edited] Westerners seem to expect more civilized behavior from Israel than from its adversaries.

Professor Samuel Huntington wrote "The Clash Of Civilizations" About 15 years ago. He argued that Western elites viewed man as a rational, economic creature, and that this was simplistic. Actually, cultural identity is a stronger force than the appeal of Western-style economic liberty and its benefits. Very few of us want to believe this.

At an unspoken level, we understand that Huntington is right. When French President Sarkozy (and others) bemoans Israel's "disproportionate" response, he expects better from the despised Jews than from Hamas. He regards Israel as a Western society bound by civilized norms, whereas any old barbarism issuing forth from Gaza is excused as "desperation."

Britain's Channel 4 says that we don't get the chance to see Islamic leaders like Iranian President Ahmadinejad speak for themselves. It is more accurate to say that they speak for themselves incessantly, but the louder they speak the more we put our hands over our ears and go "Nya nya, can't hear you."

Most Western elites believe that everyone wants to go to university, get a steady job, and settle down in a nice house. Against this belief, Ahmadinejad's statement that "England's demise is on our agenda" is almost literally untranslatable.

We deplore Ahmadinejad as a genocidal fantasist when he threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map. But, maybe he's a genocidal realist, and we're the fantasists.

Diplomacy and Terrorism

Diplomacy and Terrorism
12/30/08 - ChicagoBoys by Shannon Love

[edited] For nearly three decades people like Greenwald claimed that if Israel merely ended the occupation of the Palestinian territories it would get peace. Instead it got human bombs and rocket attacks. Ditto for the withdrawal from Lebanon.

Terrorists stop for only two reasons: (1) They win and graduate to despotic rule (Mugabe), or (2) they’re physically prevented from acting. Israel has decided to go for reason (2). The rest of us should hope it succeeds.

Matthew Alexander on Torture

Matthew Alexander on Torture
12/30/08 - Schneier.com

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq."