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The science of terror
Jim Miles
Online
Journal
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sometimes the science community, hiding behind the guise of
empirical research, cannot see its own bias even while correctly
analyzing a situation. That statement may seem contradictory,
but given the manner in which it studies ‘terror’
and then applies those findings and definitions only to some ‘other’
group, it ignores the reality of terror at home and the reality
of terror perpetrated by the ‘homeland.'
Not ‘home grown terror’ such as the Timothy McVeighs
of the world, nor the terror inflicted on the people by the very
infrequent acts of foreigners perpetrated on the homeland, but
the terror of the country itself, the acts of the people in government,
in the military, in politics, in religion, who either spread terror
themselves or spread the fear of terror in order to control not
only the domestic audience but foreign audiences as well.
This has been presented before with the National Geographic magazine’s
“World of Terror” [1] article that dutifully recorded
acts of terror throughout the world, without recognizing the United
States’ historical and current acts of terror in the homeland
and abroad. From that geographical perspective, one man’s
terror is another man’s “civilizing mission,"
bringing the benefits of superior technology and enlightened wisdom
to the masses of the world who are otherwise disenfranchised “others”
with little value until they embrace the “freedom”
of the market place and their rightful place in it.
(Article continues below)
Terror at Penn State
Terror is a very tenuous and subjective term to define. The Penn
State International Center for the Study of Terrorism [2] attempts
to draw parameters around the word, parameters that do not identify
the true perpetrators of any specific terror or terror in general:
"a particular kind of political violence that is usually
associated with the use, or threat of use of violent behavior
to achieve political ends. Although terrorism can be, and often
is, perpetrated by States, the term is most frequently associated
with non-state entities seeking to overthrow or effectively destabilize
a regime."
‘Political violence’ in itself is a highly undefined
and ambiguous term, a nice socio-psychological term that has real
little meaning. The qualification and implication that terrorism
is not perpetrated by states as much as by non-state entities
seems highly disingenuous. My readings over the past several years
would indicate the contrary, that the most significant acts of
terrorism are state sponsored and activated, whether it is civil
terror as within Stalinist Russia, or foreign terror as with the
many U.S. incursions into Latin America, Vietnam, and other areas
of economic/political interest throughout the world. To ignore
state terrorism disguises the main source of terror in our world
today.
The Penn State definition does pronounce one ‘undeniability’:
"an undeniable defining characteristic of terrorism is that
it often involves the deliberate targeting of civilians as the
immediate means towards the ultimate objectives of the terrorist
movement."
That allows, of course, that the terrorism could be individualistic,
could be state sponsored, including also from the historical record
the mass carpet bombings of the cities of Great Britain and Germany,
or the applied and threatened nuclear annihilation of masses of
populations. Individuals do not have the resources, and are unlikely
to achieve them, to promote the degree of terrorism that state
actors can. In state terrorism, terror also involves the propaganda
that is broadcast by the corporate owners of the state as well.
This is identified at Penn State with “a key feature of
terrorism is that it is a form of psychological warfare.”
They further this aspect of the definition with: "a common
strategy of terrorists is to provoke an overreaction (frequently
involving excessive measures by governments challenged by terrorists)
from the end target in an attempt to undermine its morality and
legitimacy while simultaneously increasing support for terrorists
among their sympathizers."
This sounds very similar to CIA/FBI interventions that are recorded
and noted by many authors having access to archival material in
the United States. It is a methodology utilized by state actors
as much if not more than non-state actors.
Science of terror
So why am I picking on Penn State so much, when I started with
a scientific look at terror? It is that one of their associates,
psychologist John Horgan, is a sidebar feature in a recent Scientific
American report, “Inside the Terrorist Mind.” [3]
To start with there is a problem with the use of the word “terrorist.”
In Bush’s own words, anyone not with ‘us’ is
against ‘us’ and thus in contemporary American law
and jargon could be classified as a terrorist. Evidence in Iraq
and Afghanistan would indicate that while there are foreign nationals
in the country (other than the Americans, of course) who are fighting
against the occupation, they are relatively few and far between.
A recent series of articles on Canadian forces in Afghanistan,
(currently stationed in Kandahar) [4] found no foreign fighters
within the region. All the others then, would properly be considered
insurgents or guerillas as their main motive is to rid the country
of foreign occupation.
Terror -- a rather loose term that includes many actors that
should properly be considered insurgents, guerillas, or freedom
fighters as in Palestine and Iraq -- sooner or later becomes identified
with suicide bombers, and it is this aspect that receives much
psychological wonderment and is the target of the Scientific American
article. ‘Terrorists,’ as have been analyzed more
and more frequently, are not the rabid raving lunatics on the
religious fringe, not the “Islamofascists” of the
deluded neocon mind, those who wish to destroy “us,"
the “West," because of our freedoms and rights. Instead,
as most truly scientific studies have shown, ‘terrorists’
of the suicidal kind (and even of the non-suicidal kind) do not
arise from the masses of poor, starving wretches of the Third
World who are too busy trying to feed themselves and surviving
without the time and energy for greater philosophical thoughts
about who might be oppressing them.
The majority of suicide ‘terrorists’ are generally
well educated, frequently considered to be well off in comparison
to the overall population -- people who have the time and philosophical
training to think about the injustices of the world, and, most
importantly. are battling an occupying force that is of a different
religious or sectarian belief [5]. It should be noted that the
longer an occupation lasts, the more there will be insurgents
classified as terrorists as the “collateral damage”
continues and as their means of fighting back are hugely asymmetrical
and by necessity increasingly desperate.
The bias in this article is all too familiar, the implication
by omission that terror is not something that the United States
practices at home or abroad. The article purportedly probes “the
psyches of terrorists to reveal what motivates their monstrous
acts,” concluding accurately that they are “gunning
for a greater good -- as they see it.” As they see it, of
course. does not refer to the media blindness to American acts
of terror.
All the reasons posited as to why individuals become ‘terrorists’
can be applied to state terror, as well. One phrase that applies
is that “The social milieu in which a person grew up and
the internal structure of the radical groups themselves exert
a tremendous influence.” Nothing surprising there, the ideas
and the social milieu of the neocons and many politicians is tangled
up in the web of cronyism, lobbyists, corporations, and military
welfare that feeds much of the economy. The article talks about
religion, peer pressure, and other accoutrements of the functioning
of any society as reasons for becoming terrorists, all ideas that
also help define the American political-military establishment.
Orientalist terror
Another disarming and misleading statement, one that is familiar
from other contexts as well, is the Orientalist view, that “In
Middle Eastern cultures, extremist political goals frequently
are inculcated into young people very early in life.” The
study cited [6] indicated, “adults routinely teach children
to hate the enemy,” in this case Israel. The children were
taught “how the enemy effectively evicted Palestinians from
Palestine.”
Two main arguments counter this. First -- apart from the small
size of the articles study group -- if one really examines American
culture, the children are also inculcated into the mores and beliefs
of their society, within the educational system, within the overbearing
reach of media from birth, within their religious constructs,
within their peer groups. It may be a softer gentler inculcation,
but “very early in life” Americans learn who the enemy
is, who the bad guys are, who the evil ones are. The inculcation
does not seem extreme because it is a repetitive everyday occurrence,
fitting within known and comfortable structures of society --
television, church, magazines, scouts, school. The same applies
to Israeli society as well.
The second counter to this argument about the Palestinians, is,
well, yes, that is what happened, the Palestinians were evicted
from their lands by the Israelis. So what is the point with that,
other than to imply that it is not true and to continue the Western
bias, in particular the American bias, that supports Israel without
condition? There is no mention of Israeli state terror, the killings,
extra judicial assassinations, the theft of property and many
other “heinous” actions that are fully in contradiction
of international law derived from treaties and the international
courts.
Another argument concerning Hezbollah and Hamas, is the religious
context in which “religiously motivated Islamist terrorists
were more committed to self-sacrifice than were less religious
perpetrators.” While that may be true for this particular
study, it is not supported by other studies of terrorists in general
[see note 4 again]. Further, there is no recognition of Hezbollah
and Hamas as being civil organizations that function as a societal
structure for the populations of their respective areas because
of the acts of terrorism that necessitated them in the first place
-- the occupation of their territory and its expropriation and
annexation through military force. Both organizations are complex
and more than the band of evil rogue terrorists the media and
politicians, and now the science community, wishes to make of
them.
Terror of the mind
Both John Horgan and the article’s author, Annette Schaefer,
write with a strong bias that ignores the fundamental nature of
American actions within their own country and with other areas
of the world. The article ends with the statement that terror
is “not just about violence” but “it is also
about fear.” The psychological distress experienced by the
United States after 9/11 is fully understandable, as most Americans
were (and remain) ignorant of American overseas atrocities other
than as presented in the good light of anti-communism and freedom
and democracy, and rogue states or the axis of evil, and thus
incapable of understanding how 9/11 could occur other than through
some imagined evil other. This state of historical amnesia is
highly aided by the mainstream media (as even now, actions in
Iraq are more and more off the screen, off the wire) who themselves
are corporate partners within the overall framework of state/government.
The political and military leaders take full advantage of this
ignorance of their long record of subversive acts and use their
knowledge of manipulation and propaganda to extend their actions
into rationalizing more overt and direct forms of terror -- occupation,
threats to use nuclear weapons with first strike a confirmed strategy,
and changes to homeland laws that greatly reduce the very freedoms
and liberties of persons within their own country, and greatly
limit the power of Congress. While it may be useful to understand
and study the minds and motives of individual ‘terrorists’
and their social milieu (where one would probably find the underlying
theme is “Yankee, go home”), the same concepts need
to be applied at home, when the rhetoric and apologetics of good
intentions, of American exceptionalism and universality, hide
the terror that acts from within the military and political bodies
of the United States, and the men and women, caught up in their
own acts of “gunning for the greater good -- as they see
it.”
I could understand a political journal citing these studies as
is done with “Inside the Terrorist Mind," but the political
bias presented in a supposedly scientific article about the mind
of the terrorist greatly reduces its validity. It serves again
as more propaganda to support the establishment with ideas that
are much more subjective than scientifically objective. To study
‘terror’ one needs not only to examine the insurgents
in occupied countries, but also the terrorists at home, the ones
who hide behind the jingoism and rhetoric of Western goodness
while occupying countries and killing those that get in the way
of their military, political, and economic goals. The neocon mind
would be a great place to start. The mind -- neocon or not --
is a difficult thing to study. The mind of terrorism is equally
complex and for it to have any validity it needs to begin at home
where much of the global terror begins.
Notes
[1] The Geography of Terror – Views from Middle America
[2] What is Terrorism? Pennsylvania State University
[3] Schaefer, Annette. “Inside the Terrorist Mind,”
Scientific American MIND. December 2007/January 2008. pp. 72-79.
[4] Pape, Robert. Dying to Win -- The Strategic Logic of Suicide
Terrorism. Random House, New York. 2005.
[5] “No foreigners or non-Pashtuns were encountered during
the survey, supporting the impression that such fighters are extremely
rare.” Graeme Smith, “Portrait of the enemy as young
men,” The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Saturday, March 22, 2008.
p.A14.
[6]Posted on eJournal USA by Jerrold Post, Professor of Psychiatry,
Political Psychology and International Affairs and Director of
the Political Psychology Program at The George Washington University.
He had a 21-year career with the CIA,
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