I'm curious about how applying force against suicide attackers. This spreading phenomenon needs deeper reflection.
Both physically and politically attack the people who recruit and send them. Go as far down the food chain as you can and change the conditions which make recruitment possible.
Such a project is not likely to be a short term one. It requires replacing the driving ideology with something more attractive and concurrently utterly defeating the terrorist movement.
This article is useful. I quote the last few paragraphs but it's worth reading in its entirety. I've made some comments after the quotation.
interdisciplines.org
Genesis and Future of Suicide Terrorism
Scott Atran
But the Pew findings indicate that populations supporting terrorist actions are actually disposed favorably to American forms of government, education, economy and personal liberty, despite these people?s trust in Osama Bin Laden and support for suicide actions. Studies by Palestinian political scientist Khalil Shikaki suggest that upwards of 80% of Palestinians consider Israel to have the most admirable form of government, with America next, although numerous polls indicate that 60-70% of Palestinians also express support for suicide attack. An earlier Zogby poll of Arab impressions of America (April 2002) shows the same pattern of support for America?s freedoms and democracy but rejection of its dealings with others [48] ? a pattern that undercuts the thesis of a ?clash of civilizations? [49] or NSCT?s conclusion of ?a clash between civilization and those who would destroy it?. [50]
Newer studies also confirm earlier reports showing that suicide terrorists and their supporters are not impoverished, uneducated, spiteful, or socially disfavored. Palestinian economist Basel Saleh compiled information on 171 militants killed in action (nearly all during the Second Intifada, 2000-2003) from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) news services, including 87 suicide attackers.[51] Majorities of militants were unmarried males (20-29 yrs.), from families with both parents living and 6-10 siblings, and who completed secondary school or attended college. Suicide attackers, which included bombers (29 Hamas, 18 PIJ) and shooters (14 Hamas, 26 PIJ), had more pronounced tendencies in these directions. A majority of Hamas bombers attended college; PIJ had more shooters aged 14-19. Majorities of bombers, but few shooters, had prior histories of arrest or injury by Israel?s army; however, most shooters had one or more family members with such histories. This underscores the earlier speculation that personal grievance could be a greater factor in Palestinian cases than for Al-Qaeda and its ideological allies.
Sources with the U.S. Army Defense Intelligence Agency provided me summaries of interrogations with detainees at Guantanamo, Cuba. Saudi-born operatives, especially those in leadership positions, are often ?educated above reasonable employment level... a surprising number have graduate degrees and come from high-status families.? Motivation and commitment are evident in the willingness to sacrifice material and emotional comforts (families, jobs, physical security), and to pay their own way from their homes to travel long distances. Many told interrogators that if released from detention they would return to Jihad. Detainees evince little history of personal grievance, but frequently cite older relatives and respected community members who participated in earlier Jihads as influencing decisions to join the fight. Yemenis have more modest education and social status, and are often recruited and financed through mosques in Yemen and abroad (especially England). As with Hamas and PIJ, religious indoctrination by Al-Qaeda and allies (of recruits who initially express only moderate religiosity) appears crucial to creating intimate cells of fictive kin whose members commit to willingly die for one another.
All 9/11 attackers, including 15 Saudis and 4 others of Middle Eastern origin, were young, single males from middle class families. All were recruited in Europe by religious organizations connected with Al-Qaeda, when most were enrolled in a secular higher education curriculum. No ?personality? defects were evident before the attack, and none discovered in hindsight (despite intense scrutiny).[52]
Social psychologists have long documented what they call ?the fundamental attribution error". This interpretation bias seems to be especially prevalent in ?individualistic? cultures, such as those of the United States and Western Europe. In contrast, many cultures (in Africa and Asia) in which a ?collectivist? ethic is more prevalent show less susceptibility to such judgments.[53] U.S. government and media characterizations of Middle East suicide bombers as homicidal maniacs may also suffer from a fundamental attribution error: there is no instance of religious or political suicide terrorism resulting from the lone action of a mentally unstable bomber (e.g., a suicidal Unabomber) or even of someone acting entirely under his own authority and responsibility (e.g., a suicidal Timothy McVeigh).
What leads a normal person to suicide terrorism? Part of the answer may lie in philosopher Hannah Arendt?s notion of the ?banality of evil?, which she used to describe the fact that mostly ordinary Germans were recruited to man Nazi extermination camps, not sadistic lunatics.[54] (Milgram interpreted his experiments on obedience to authority among American adults as confirming Arendt?s thesis). The primacy of situational over personality factors suggests the futility of attempts to psychologically profile the suicide terrorist. A Federal Interagency report on ?The Sociologiy and Psychology of Terrorism? in current use by the CIA, and which includes detailed literature reviews and psychological profiles of Al-Qaeda, Hamas and other suicide-sponsoring organization leaders, states: ?People who have joined terrorist groups have come from a wide variety of cultures, nationalities and ideological causes, all strata of society, and diverse populations. Their personalities and characteristics are as diverse as those of people in the general population. There seems to be a general agreement among psychologists that there is no particular psychological attribute that can be used to describe the terrorist or any ?personality? that is distinctive of terrorists?.[55] Months ? sometimes years ? of intense indoctrination can lead to ?blind obedience? no matter who the individual, as indicated in research on people who become torturers for their governments[56].
It is the particular genius of institutions, like Al-Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah, that takes ordinary people into a mind-set of historical, political and religious grievance and turns them into human bombs. Intense indoctrination often lasting 18 months or more causes recruits to identify emotionally with their small cell (typically 3-8 members), viewing it as a family of fictive kin for whom they are as willing to die as a mother for her child or a soldier for his buddies. Like good advertisers, the charismatic leaders of martyr-sponsoring organizations turn ordinary desires for family and religion into cravings for what they?re pitching, to the benefit of the manipulating organization rather than the individual being manipulated (much as the pornography industry turns universal and innate desires for sexual mates into lust for paper or electronic images to ends that reduce personal fitness but benefit the manipulators).[57]
Despite numerous studies of individual behavior in group contexts that show situation to be a much better predictor than personality,[58] the Pew survey finds that Americans overwhelmingly believe that personal decision, success and failure depend upon individual choice, responsibility and personality. Most of the world disagrees. This is plausibly one reason for which Americans tend to think of terrorists as ?homicidal maniacs?, whereas the rest of the world tends not to.
Whether because of a fundamental attribution error, or willful blindness to avoid dissonance with one?s own worldview, Americans mostly view attempts to understand what motivates terrorism as at best a waste of time, at worst pandering to terrorism. But countering terrorism also requires facing problems with our own society?s appraisals and actions. Such considerations are wholly absent from the GAO report and the NSCT. What these people dislike is not America?s internal liberties or culture, but its external actions and foreign policy. A 1997 U.S. Department of Defense Science Board report surmises (in response to the suicide bombing of U.S. Air Force housing at Khobar Towers in Saudia Arabia): "Historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States".[59]
There seems to be a direct correlation between U.S. military and counterinsurgency aid, human rights abuses by the governments aided, and rise in terrorism. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch regularly document ?horrific? and ?massive? humans rights abuses occurring in those countries that receive the most U.S. aid in absolute terms. Thus, the U.S.State Dept. 2003 budget for Foreign Military Financing is $4.107 billion.[60] The FMF budget includes as its top receivers: $2.1 billion for Israel,[61], $1.3 billion for Egypt [62], $98 million for Colombia,[63] $50 million for Pakistan [64]. Special Economic Support Funds were also budgeted as part of emergency supplemental bills: $600 million for Pakistan; $40.5 million in economic and law enforcement assistance for Uzbekistan; $45 million in FMF for Turkey[66] and Uzbekistan [65]; $42.2 million for training and equipment for border security forces in the Central Asian Republics (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan);[67] and additional millions in special Defense Department funds for counterterrorism training and operations in the Central Asian Republics and Georgia.[68] A recent National Research Council report, ?Discouraging Terrorism,? finds that: ?With respect to political context, terrorism and its supporting audiences appear to be fostered by policies of extreme political repression and discouraged by policies of incorporating both dissident and moderate groups responsibly into civil society and the political process?. [69] The situation may be critical in Central Asia, one area of intensified U.S. intervention where anti-American and pro-Radical Islamic sentiment is rapidly rising, and where Al-Qaeda appears to be relocating.
The GAO report highlights two key objectives in realizing the NSCT goal of diminishing support for terrorism: strengthening the ?Partnership Initiative? and winning the ?War of Ideas.? The NSCT?s Partnership Initiative involves counterterrorism aid, including law enforcement training and military assistance, ?intended to promote U.S. national security interests by contributing to global and regional stability, strengthening military support for democratically-elected governments? and fostering ?democratic values including respect for internationally recognized civil and human rights? (GAO, pp. 119-120). Winning the ?War of Ideas? involves foreign aid programs and media broadcasts to promote democratic values ?to kindle the hopes and aspirations of freedom.? (NSCT, p. 14)
The ?new partners in the war on terrorism? cited in the GAO report are the Eurasian Republics of Kazakhistan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia. (GAO, p. 24) All but one of them is run by a former Communist Party leader-turned-nationalist, whose rule ? like Saddam?s ? involves a brutal personality cult. All have been condemned by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for increasing human rights abuses. As for winning the War of Ideas about democracy and personal freedoms, the Pew survey strongly suggests that Muslim opinion in favor of these values means that war was already won. This raises suspicion that the call to battle against haters of democracy and freedom ? like the alarms about Iraq?s imminent use of weapons of mass destruction and its ties to Al-Qaeda[70] - was cynically designed to rally the home front for a strategic push into South and Central Asia. The Pew survey intimates that much of the world ? apart from America ? thinks so.[71]
In summary, suicide bombers are basically ordinary young men and women caught up in circumstances of no meaningful work, and very limited or no political headroom and they are angry. If they are in terrorist recruitment areas they are vulnerable if the terrorists need suicide bombers and will express their anger by murdering others while killing themselves.
The US has for many years has tolerated, or appeared to support, or supported regimes that deny their citizens political headroom and are often brutal and kleptocratic. Such regimes create breeding grounds for backward ideology and terrorist organizations some of which will attack the US because they see it as a supporter of the repressive regime.
The US has recently recognized this is not good policy, is withdrawing its support from some of these regimes and attacking others.
But, contradictorily, it is still supporting others in Central Asia and is having great difficulty convincing the Pakistani miltary of the virtues of more democratic behaviour. The Pakistan problem at present looks intractible although US diplomats are very busy there. But there is no long term reason to continue supporting the degenerate Asian regimes which are not yet in a dreadful position like Pakistan. I note in this connection there have been changes for the better, perhaps, in Georgia - some of the change having to do with US activity. I hope the US will continue these efforts in an Eastward direction along with Russian cooperation.
The problem of suicide bombers is not an easy one. In two instances, the Singalese and Chechen examples, it appears legitimate aspirations for Tamil justice and a measure of Chechen independence, have been hijacked by the followers of anti-modern, tyrannical ideologies of marxism (SL) and islamism (Ch).
In both cases it appears people running the rebellions are worse than those the population is rebelling against. (I am suspicious that my information about Chechnya may not be that good due to Russian spin, but that's my present view).
Although I think the Russian and Sri Lankan governments would like settlements, they are not willing to settle with movements having unmodern, expansionary ideology and continuously maximalist demands. The present situation is wretched but prudence suggests settlements with these movements will ultimately be worse, especially in the Chechen case.
So, Boris, can the Russians defeat the Chechen Mujahadeen and get Chechen conditions changed so that such an event won't redevelop and suicide bombers reappear? Re-subjugating the Chechens is not a useful long term answer. Establishing a modern society in Chechnya while defeating the mujahadeen is such an answer. Can the Russians do it? Will the Russians have to change themselves to do it? |
