Why is terrorism ineffective?
Because terrorism evokes such strong emotions, it has also spawned at least five myths. The first one was born in September 2001, when US President George W. Bush declared: "We will rid the world of evil-doers" who hate us because of "our freedoms." This emotion embodies the "myth of absolute evil," according to Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Florida State University. This myth actually claims that terrorists engage in pointless violence for no logical reason.
This idea has been disproved in scientific studies that have examined the causes of aggression. Psychologists have identified four types of violence that aggressors use to achieve a purposeful goal (from the perspective of the aggressor): Violence as a tool to achieve something, or instrumental violence, for example robbery, conquest or elimination of opponents; Revenge, such as blood revenge or taking the law into one's hands; control and recognition, such as competition for prestige and women, especially among young men; andideology, such as religious belief or utopian aspirations. A mixture of all four motivates terrorists.
In a study that covered 52 cases in which radical Muslims took terrorist acts against the United States, for example, political science researcher John Mueller of Ohio State University concluded that their motivations were often a combination of instrumental violence and revenge: "A seething rage against US foreign policy , especially against its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and against its support for Israel in the Palestinian conflict." Religious ideology "was one of the considerations of most of them," says Müller, "but not because the attackers wanted to spread Sharia law or establish caliphates (few of the terrorists were even able to spell even one of the two words), but to protect their religious brothers against what is commonly seen as a concentrated war waged against them by the USA in the Middle East."
And as for control and recognition: the anthropologist Scott Atran from the University of Michigan has shown that suicide bombers (and their families) gain status and respect in their lives and promises to women in the afterlife. Most of them belong to "local and loose networks of family members and friends who give their lives not only for the cause but also for each other." Most of the terrorists are in their late teens or early 20s and they "tend to join mainly movements that promise them a meaningful goal, friendship, adventure and fame," he says.
Atran refutes another misconception: that the terrorists belong to a wide global network, which is managed from above and conspires against the West. He proves that in fact these are "complex, decentralized, independently organized and constantly evolving social networks."
A third disproved opinion claims that terrorists are diabolical geniuses, as stated in the 11/XNUMX Commission of Inquiry report: "sophisticated, patient, disciplined and deadly." According to political science researcher Max Abrahams from Johns Hopkins University, after the elimination of the leaders of the most extreme organizations, "terrorists who operated inside the United States were not sophisticated and were not geniuses, they were incompetent fools."
And the examples are many: Richard Ride, who tried to blow up a plane with a bomb in his shoes in 2001, was unable to light the delay fuse because he got wet in the rain. Omar Farooq Abdel-Almutaleb, who tried to detonate a bomb he planted in his underwear in 2009, only managed to set his groin on fire. In 2010, Faisal Shahzad tried to set off a bomb in Times Square and only managed to burn his Nissan Pathfinder from the inside. Rezvan Pardos, who tried to build a bomber in 2012, purchased fake C-4 explosives from the agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). And more recently, the 2013 Boston Marathon terrorists seem to have had only one gun, and their only method of escape was to hijack a car, almost empty of gas, that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev used to run over his brother, Tamerlan, before he failed in his attempt to kill himself in a grounded boat.
Another fiction holds that terrorism is deadly. Compared to the annual average of murders in the US, which stands at 13,700 cases per year, the deaths from terrorist acts are almost not considered statistically: 33 cases in the US since September 11, 2001.
And finally, another invention claims that terrorism is effective. In an analysis of 457 terrorist operations conducted since 1968, political science researcher Audrey Cronin of George Mason University found not a single extremist terrorist group that succeeded in taking over a country and 94% of them failed to achieve any of their strategic goals. In her 2009 book "How Terrorism Ends" (published by Princeton University), she states that it ends quickly (terrorist groups survive an average of eight years) and badly (when their leaders die).
We must always be on our guard, of course, but these myths dictate that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that terrorism is nothing like what the terrorists would like it to be.
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About the author
Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com). His latest book, The Believing Mind, is out now in paperback. Follow him on Twitter: @michaelshermer
The article is published with the permission of Scientific American Israel
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More facts about violence and terrorism including the regional conflict on page 3
The World Is Not Falling Apart
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/the_world_is_not_falling_apart_the_trend_lines_reveal_an_increasingly_peaceful.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru
Haha, shouldn't you be charging for that kind of knwe?edgol!
In crime there are good and bad, in war there are two sides on the same level. In war each side claims
Legitimacy has the tools he has - he who has an organized army carries out the orders of the head of state
And also those who fight as a partisan/guerrilla/terrorist. A government that misleads its citizens into thinking that there is a second party
The war is illegitimate - it is likely that this regime has malicious intentions towards its citizens as well.
For the sake of efficiency - terrorists never win - they change their name to freedom fighters.
See underground during the mandate period. They didn't eliminate Britain, but they convinced her that it wasn't worth it
Terrorism is a group of people whose actions cause fear in the public.
So everyone should think about who they are afraid of. And that body he is afraid of can be called a terrorist body for him.
Stop letting the media (capitalists) decide for you who is a terrorist organization and who is not.
By the way, the terrorism in Spain before the elections caused a government that took the Spaniards out of Iraq and Afghanistan
Fourth "myth": Terrorism is deadly - this is true, and doubly true if you are a Muslim. Most of the terrorism in the world is Islamic and also most of the victims are Muslims. There are certain gaps between surveillance and research bodies, because not all terrorist incidents receive any mention. This is the case in remote areas of Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. There is nothing to talk about Darfur. Muslims are slaughtering Muslims, and the free world only gets very little information. At least twelve million people were killed and slaughtered in the Arab and Muslim world. Most of them by Arabs and Muslims and this is the story of the global jihad. If we take into account the underestimated estimates (the differences reach millions) of the large Muslim massacres in recent years, we can see that in Algeria there were: about 100 thousand during the civil war in the nineties. Sudan: between 2.6 million and 3 million. Afghanistan: about a million in a civil war. Somalia: between 400 thousand and 550 thousand victims in a civil war. Bangladesh: between 1.4 million and 2 million. Indonesia: 400 thousand people, and another 100 thousand to 200 thousand in East Timor. Iraq: between 1.54 million and 2 million victims. Iran: between 450 thousand and 970 thousand victims. Lebanon: 130 thousand victims. Yemen: between 100 thousand and 150 thousand dead. Chechnya: between 80 thousand and 300 thousand dead. There were many other smaller massacres in the name of jihad in dozens of other countries. Slaughter and terrorism shut down the economy, cause populations to migrate and countries to change shape.
The third "myth" that the terrorists are geniuses and devils: no one claims this. Their leaders are sophisticated enough to continue to operate (and especially since in most of the world they function without any interference) or to speak in two languages with the Western countries, such as the regimes in Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, and most of the Muslim countries, which are all the major financiers of the global terrorist organizations. The executive branch on the suicide terrorists themselves is not composed of geniuses and should not be so except according to their role in the system. There are different roles in the systems and everyone finds their role according to their abilities. But they are all disciplined and deadly. And all the branched terrorist systems (global networks of financing, support, recruitment, education, armament, etc.) for all their operatives are indeed "sophisticated, patient, disciplined and deadly" as stated in the American investigative report on the Twin Disasters.
The second "myth" that terrorist organizations belong to a wide global network - this is not entirely true, but to claim that they are completely decentralized is also not entirely true. There is a strong connection between the major organizations: the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, political political organizations in Saudi Arabia or Iran, etc., logistically, economically, ideologically. This brings to mind the terrorist organizations in Israel, and their strong ties to other public movements as well as to each other, the Az ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the Army of Islam, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah, the Popular Resistance Committees, the Palestinian Authority forces, and more.
The first "myth" is that the terrorists act violently without purpose and without any logical reason. I believe there is confusion between the goal and the way. The goal is indeed illogical, insane and messianic religious, so the violence is essentially pointless. But nevertheless the motives are human and therefore all the terrorists will commit the violence for the reasons named by the psychologists.
In addition to what I was told above, an attack like the "twins" at a different time would have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, not thousands and billions of dollars. I'd say it does achieve its purpose. By the way, the Nazis were also a terrorist regime - the terrorism of a state spread by a group that took control of it and transferred it to the rest of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa on the way to worldwide terrorism
You can add the ANC in South Africa which a terrorist organization became the ruling party. And of course us Haganah Haganah HaTzel and Lahi were organizations that carried out acts of terrorism and succeeded in expelling the British, achieved their goal of establishing a Jewish state and became the two political forces that rule Israel
Shallow and stupid article
I actually agree with most of the things written except for one.
A terrorist regime...or a terrorist group did occupy a country...one such is called Lebanon.
And if your definition of terrorism is looser, you have the Ayatollahs in Iran and the military regime of North Korea...Iran's terrorism is more comprehensive and conventional (arms embassies, etc.)...and North Korea's is mainly on paper but with a nuclear angle.
The colonies did not occupy the United States by virtue of terrorism, if they were terrorized even during the war against them.
Regarding us as Jews or rather Israelis. Terrorism to me is at least defined as the indiscriminate killing of civilians for the purpose of killing. Fighting between armies or even soldier-on-soldier attacks is still fighting.
Shooting at a baby in a crib .. an explosion in a cafe .. this is pure terrorism.
strange article,
The next myth: "The myth of absolute evil" does not arise from the opening sentence as stated "Bush declared: "We will rid the world of evil-doers" who hate us because of "our freedoms."
Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Bush, this is a non sequitur
The conclusion is also shallow, and hasty. Terrorism on the weight of fear, not on the weight of casualties. Measuring terrorism by the number of deaths sounds to me like measuring a tank by its cost (completely loose connection). The takeover of fear over the population and its effect must be measured (for example the press, which is supposed to be the abode of freedom of speech, today in many places will think twice about printing cartoons of Muhammad and usually decide against).
In addition to claiming that terrorism did not conquer a country is unfair. The USA terrorized England and succeeded in occupying the English colonies. In some places there is no clear line between terrorism and war. And terrorism is just another tactic in the arsenal of total warfare. Reducing it as irrelevant is frowned upon when the terrorist operators find it to be.
Embarrassing article.
No terrorist group managed to conquer a country? What about Gaza? The authority's territories in Yosh? The withdrawal from Lebanon. We also didn't exactly get a country with nice words. Ireland? All the countries that fought and succeeded in gaining independence?
"Atran refutes another erroneous opinion: that the terrorists are part of a wide global network..." - how exactly does he refute this? They don't say…
Research on 52 cases of terrorist acts only? And against the USA only? Not a representative sample at all.
Short, from a scientific article we expect more...
Seems simplistic and opinionated even before the research started. The conclusions are too decisive and it is amazing that a site like "Hidan" publishes them without criticism. Beyond that - the terrorism within the territories of the USA is not exactly an example of terrorism as it appears in most of the globe. In Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorism is very effective and has lasted for much more than 8 years. In Israel it requires enormous resources from the state and certainly makes it difficult, creates a sense of insecurity and undermines the strength of society (the main evidence for this is the number of renegade people who are practically ready for the state to give up parts of its sovereignty and are flexible in the face of these phenomena of gross immorality, only because they cannot deal with the difficult requirements of standing firm against such moral problems).
More than all the different types of violence that in one way or another cause terrorism (which Popper would call pseudoscience, because it is a theory that everything will fall into it and cannot be refuted), the main problem is a lack of morality. A lack of morality is caused when a state fails to maintain social norms - either by not maintaining the educational institutions, that the level of education is poor and does not deal with values, or that the state is elevated in its duty to protect its citizens - either by inactive law authorities or by an ineffective judiciary. Either way, this allows for the growth of nuclei within society where morals are deficient and which allows terrorism to operate within them.
It's sad that lately it's a lot of science.