On 2012-10-11, at 12:36 PM, Joseph Catron wrote:
> A Virginia/Gaza colleague who's currently in Pakistan for the anti-drone
> solidarity march there has a relevant blog post up today. It's worth
> reading in full, but here's a brief excerpt:
>
> And after hearing testimony from many drone victims, reading a recent
>> investigative report from Stanford Law School and talking to a female
>> Pakistani lawyer about her thesis on what motivates terrorist recruits, I
>> am convinced that the two (drones and the Taliban) cannot be considered
>> separately. The former “feeds” the latter.
>>
>> “I interviewed 16 youth from Waziristan, all under the age of 21, who are
>> now sentenced to Pakistani prisons for becoming attackers for the Taliban,”
>> explained Anum Abbasi, an associate with the Research Society of
>> International Law (RSIL) in Islamabad. “What became clear from this
>> empirical research (not yet published) is that a primary motivator are the
>> U.S. drone strikes. They breed anger, hatred and desperation.” And most
>> certainly, anti-American sentiment.
Thanks. This conforms to Robert Pape's classic study of terrorist recruits in the Middle East, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere: Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. They undoubtedly include demented individuals of the type who shot Malama or applauded the action, but this doesn't invalidate the anti-imperialist objective of these movements. This is not to condone their attacks on civilians, of course, which are indefensible on political as moral grounds; it is a desperate, ineffective and ultimately self-defeating tactic which serves as a pretext and justification for further state repression and foreign intervention which ultimately takes a higher toll of the civilian population which support these movements.
>From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Suicide_Terrorism#Ch._7:_Demystifying_al-Qaeda
Part II: The Social Logic of Suicide Terrorism
Ch. 6: Occupation and Religious Difference
"[T]he taproot of suicide terrorism is nationalism" not religion (79). It is "an extreme strategy for national liberation" (80). This explains how the local community can be persuaded to re-define acts of suicide and murder as acts of martyrdom on behalf of the community (81-83). Pape proposes a nationalist theory of suicide terrorism, seen from the point of view of terrorists. He analyzes the notions of occupation (83-84), homeland (84-85), identity (85-87), religious difference as a contributor to a sense of "alien" occupation (87-88), foreign occupation reverses the relative importance of religion and language (88-92), and the widespread perception of the method as a "last resort" (92-94). A statistical demonstration leads to the conclusion that a "linear" rather than "self-reinforcing spiral" explanation of suicide terrorism is best (94-100). However, different future developments of the phenomenon of suicide terrorism are very possible, and more study of the role of religion is needed (101).
Ch. 7: Demystifying al-Qaeda With increasing knowledge of al-Qaeda, we see that "the presence of American military forces for combat operations on the homeland territory of the suicide terrorists is stronger than Islamic fundamentalism in predicting whether individuals from that country will become al-Qaeda suicide terrorists" (103). "Al-Qaeda is less a transnational network of like-minded ideologues . . . than a cross-national military alliance of national liberation movements working together against what they see as a common imperial threat" (104). The nature of Salafism, a Sunni form of Islamic fundamentalism, is complex (105-07). Statistical analysis fails to corroborate Salafism-terrorism connection, but it does corroborate a connection to U.S. military policies in the Persian Gulf (107-17). Al-Qaeda propaganda emphasizes the "Crusader" theme, which is inherently related to occupation (117-24). Pape concludes that "the core features of al-Qaeda" are captured by his theory (125).
Ch. 10: The Demographic Profile of Suicide Terrorists
"In general, suicide attackers are rarely socially isolated, clinically insane, or economically destitute individuals, but are most often educated, socially integrated, and highly capable people who could be expected to have a good future" (200). Pape discusses problems of data-gathering (201-02). He establishes 462 individuals in his "universe" of suicide terrorists available for analytical purposes (203). Hezbollah suicide bombers in the period 1982-1986 were 71% Communist/Socialist, 21% Islamist, 8% Christian (204-07). In general, suicide terrorists are in their early 20s (207-08). Females are fewer in Islamist groups: "Islamist fundamentalism may actually reduce the number of suicide terrorists by discouraging certain categories of individuals" (208-09). Female suicide terrorists tend to be older than male (209-10). There is no documented mental illness in any case of suicide terrorism, though there are 16 cases of personal trauma (e.g. the loss of a loved one) (210-11). Arab suicide terrorists are in general better educated than average and are from the working or middle classes (211-16). "[T]hey resemble the kind of politically conscious individuals who might join a grassroots movement more than they do wayward adolescents or religious fanatics" (216).