New York City. Washington D.C. London. Nairobi. Beirut. Yazidi. Beslan. Mumbai. Lockerbie. These are the locations of some of the world’s worst terrorist attacks, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. The culprits of these attacks were nearly always a relatively small group of individuals that were labeled as terrorists. It has been said that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. This is the problem with understanding terrorism, a word that means many things to different people. Our different perspectives make it a difficult problem to define and solve. These incidents have occurred relatively infrequently but their impact has been long term and far reaching. What could drive human beings to be so destructive of life and property? That is a question many have tried to answer yet few agree upon. Politicians and the intelligence community do not tend to focus on the individuals but on terrorist organizations and the state supporting them because these larger entities have a greater impact on the national interests of a country. Terrorist groups cannot exist without individuals choosing to participate. Understanding what motivates the individual is key to being able to stop them before they commit these heinous acts.
The main conclusions reached by scholars are that individuals are motivated by the external factors of religious zeal, political injustice, and socioeconomic strife. These explanations, along with the consideration of individual psychology create a model under which many terrorists can be categorized. There is limited research on the psychology of terrorism with it being a secretive activity and one that often leaves the perpetrator deceased, but the capture and int...
... middle of paper ...
...Sciences Press, Inc. 183-192.
Friedman, Thomas. “The Core of Muslim Rage.” The New York Times. March 6, 2012. A25.
Kreuger, Alan. “What Makes a Terrorist?” The American. November/December 2007.
Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Long, David E. The Anatomy of Terrorism. New York: The Free Press, 1990. Print.
Pillar, Paul R. “Fighting the War in Afghanistan Encourages Terrorism.” Terrorism. Ed. Laurie
S. Friedman. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2011. 73-78. Print
Shiva, Vandana. “Economic Problems Cause Terrorism.” Terrorism. Ed. Laura Egendorf.
Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2004. 86-91. Print.
Sullivan, Anthony. “Islam Does Not Encourage Terrorism.” Terrorism. Ed. Laura Egendorf.
Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2004. 79-85. Print.
Warraq, Ibn. “Islam Encourages Terrorism.” Terrorism. Ed. Laura Egendorf. Farmington Hills:
Greenhaven Press, 2004. 70-78. Print.
Lewis, B. (September 1990) The Roots of Muslim Rage: Why So Many Muslims Deeply Resent The West, and why Their Bitterness Will Not Be Easily Mollified. The Atlantic v.266, pp.47(11).
The FBI defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives (fbi.gov).” By this definition, terrorism can be classified as internal or international based on the overall intent of the attack. Terrorism has been around since the beginning of time, but it’s only since 2011 that the world has come to fully understand the meaning of terrorism. The following paragraphs will highlight four different types of terrorist attacks that all took place within the United States spanning over a 40 year time period.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and acute stress disorder (ASD) are two stress disorders that occur after a traumatizing experience. PTSD is defined as a disorder that follows a distressing event outside the range of normal human experience and that is characterized by features such as intense fear, avoidance of stimuli associated with the event, and reliving the event. Acute stress disorder is defined as a disorder that is characterized by feelings of anxiety and helplessness and caused by a traumatic event. It also usually occurs within a month of the event and lasts from 2 days to 4 weeks. Dealing with experiences like the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks in 2001 were difficult for people and easily classified as traumatizing experiences. For times like these when a large number of people experience a traumatizing experience and will probably develop PTSD or ASD, there is no precedent for how to treat them. The only tool that can be used at these times is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), to classify the disorder. No real solution exists for a treatment process for an incident of this scale. The three journal articles I will be using show statistical data about how people dealt with these experiences and what percent of them developed PTSD or ASD. They also show how many people showed signs of these disorders but never contacted a professional to help treat it. Even as far away as Brussels, expatriates of the United States felt the effects of the attacks of September 11th.
It is therefore imperative that the fight against terrorism focuses on preventive rather than reactive strategies that involve understanding how terrorism works and what can be done to prevent terror attacks. One way of achieving this is through learning the psychology of terrorist group recruitment. Understanding this psychology is important as it will raise awareness to the general public to understand how terrorists are recruited and how they can avoid being recruited into terrorist organizations. In addition, anti-terrorist groups and policy experts may use this knowledge to develop interventions or policies that discourage and prevent terrorist group recruitment. This paper will focus on the psychology of terrorist group recruitment and the discussions will be summarized at the end.
More and more in the world today, circumstances have brought about changes in how members have used radical protesting. One way used to protest a situation is through terrorism, and the people who exercise violence in the pursuit of what they hold to be just causes are alternately known as terrorists. This movement, although viewed as barbaric, requires a person to view the needs and goals of a particular cause to be greater than that of the well being of others. There are certain characteristic traits that can be found in the majority of terrorism, which can identify a profile of a terrorist’s mind. A terrorist is not just an insane person, but also possibly a person that has been forced either by personal decision or by situations beyond control to choose an “insane” method to achieve an unachievable goal.
Terrorism has been significantly on the rise over the past several years, making it one of the major concerns for governments and security organizations. The identity of terrorists and the activities perpetrated by them have been associated with certain races, religious affiliations and other geographical parameters, with little concern to understand the development of these characteristics among humanity. Most individuals have classified terrorists as being members of specific races and hence developed fallacious theories that associate terrorism with genetic makeup and other mental problems.
Ultimately, I argue that Crenshaw’s Rational-Strategic approach should be used to better understand why Al-Qaeda decided to implement these attacks, and that Abrahms’ Social-Psychological approach should be used to better understand why some individuals might have volunteered to participate as hijackers. Due to the differing levels of analysis in each theory, and the complicated nature of the case, choosing one theory as more applicable than the other to this case would be impossible. Rather, parts of both theories should be used together to glean a better understand of the rational behind the decision to implement these attacks.
All the time, terrorist battles are the consequence of a long radicalization procedure of certain political or religious development. At the point when those developments lose their social impact, they tend to divide from and structure diverse gatherings. At times, fanatics in those gatherings embrace terrorism as its favored strategy for social impact.
The social development or structure of a terrorist does not reveal dominant features of psychopathology from an outside perspective. The psychopathology of terrorism has been interpreted as ‘unconscious motives and impulses’ that stemmed in childhood (Borum, 2004). A better example would be reactive aggression described through aggressive expressions and vengeful hostility with lack of impulse control commonly developed within an individual’s childhood. Many children who are humiliated at a young age for their beliefs or interest advance into adult terrorist (Spencer, 2009). The underlining fundamental build of a terrorist or terrorist organization is best understood by analysis of their history. If the psychopathological role of a terrorist leader or organization is determined or understood then law enforcement will have proper information to predict future attacks. Social disorganization is the best way to describe motivation for terrorist actions. Thus, bringing the relation to terrorist being inspired through their beliefs in justification and necessity to incorporate change through public fear. The understanding of a terrorist’s psychopathology helps reveal the relevance in understanding a terrorist’s individual
Motivation is broken up into three categories when it comes to terrorist, those three forms of motivation are revenge, renown, and reaction. It is these motivations that
In the past, it was common place for scholars to classify terrorist acts as pathological manifestations of an individual’s own psychological shortcomings.
The mind of a terrorist is a very unique and mysterious thing. There are many things that can create different aspects inside a terrorist oganization. With a set of constant new recruits and persons that are willing to commit sucidie terrorism the terror organizations can be extrememly effective in achieving their goals for their organizations. Recruits can be reached through many forms of communications and once into a group that is radicalized they can become suicide terrorist in order to fulfill their own needs.
Islamic extremists, like Ramzi Ahmad Yousef, pose a large threat of religious terrorism and are very difficult to identify. These types of militants are very hard to trace, due to the fact that the Islamic faith does not sponsor the act of terrorism, but it is the individual’s inclination. In February 1993, Ramzi Ahmad Yousef was found to be responsible for the explosion of a massive van bomb in an underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York, which killed six and wounded over 1,000 (Combs, 120). This would later turn out to not be the only attack on the World Trade Center. Unlike the interconnected terrorist groups of the past, for example the Provisional Irish Republican Army, many of the Islamic militant mem...
Terrorism is one of the most extensively discussed issues of our time and at the same time it is also one of the least understood. The term itself “terrorism” means many different things to different people, cultures, and races. As a result, trying to define or classify terrorism with one universal definition is nearly impossible. The definition of terrorism used in this research is a reflection of much of the Western and American way of defining it. The definition of terrorism is,
Political violence is the leading cause of wars today. Personal agendas have led to many of the political objectives that cause violence today this has caused many problems throughout the world and will continue to do so until a solution to this issue is found. Political objectives have been advanced involuntarily dependent upon the kind of government a nation exercises. For instance, in a democratic nation political groups must worry about convincing the majority in order to advance ethically. Those who try to influence the majority through acts of violence are considered today as “terror” organizations. Though perhaps if it were not because of the recent 9/11 terror attacks that maybe such warrants would not be seen as terror attacks, but instead the result of partisan advancement. Acts of terrorism have been around throughout the evolution of mankind. Terror attacks have even been traced back as far as the religious roots of an ancient middle east (Ross, Will Terrorism End?, 2006). However as man evolved, so did terrorism. Today’s extremism involves some of the main characteristics of ancient terrorism, but much more developed. Political advancement is no longer the root cause of terrorism acts. Instead influxes of “holy” wars have been appended the prior definition of terrorism. Mistakably modern terrorism has been confused for Political violence with political objectives, but research will establish that the nature of terrorism is fundamentally different from other forms of political violence.