The Motivation of Terrorism
So I’ve moved into Leam, am paying off my overdraft, and finally have the internet back! The saga continues…...
I’ve been noticing more and more the bizarre assertion by people both high and low that foreign policy (American and British) is not the main cause of terrorism. Many insist that it’s a hatred of freedom on the part of the terrorists, or a rejection of our cultural practice. John Reed today rejected the idea that our foreign policy fosters radical terrorism, calling the idea a dreadful misjudgement. BBC’s have your say, displaying it’s usual cutting insight, is awash with people denying that it’s in any way our fault/responsibility, although giving no reason for this position.
I don’t really see if there is any justification for denial. Robert Pape, probably the leading western authority on suicide bombing, is unequivocal is his insistence that there is…
“little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions. . . . Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland”
After studying every worldwide case of suicide bombing since 1980, he is clear that it is not because they are Muslim, or because they dislike freedom, or because they are bored, but because of intervention and percieved oppression. Whether or not you agree with the intervention is irrelevant (the right-wing Pape actually searches in his writing for a better, less controntational form of interventionism); the fact is that it is the overriding cause of terrorism.
This also means that the common claim that ‘we fight them there so that they don’t come to our soil’ (more popular in the US than the UK I believe) is totally false. Pape shows how dialogue and progress is quick to halt terrorist activity, using the example of the diminishing levels of IRA violence through the 80’s and into the 90’s, as dialogue and progress increased. The secular and tactical nature of most terrorism means that if a peaceful, easier route is percieved, the attacks will subside. This is contrary to the claims that groups such as Hamas would reject any peaceful solution – Pape’s work shows that if those groups believed that an acceptable and workable solution was achievable through peaceful means, it would be far preferable to their current course.
Terrorism is undoubtedly an issue to be adressed. However it is common sense to realise that any campaigns that result in high ‘collateral damage’, such as Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza and Iraq, will only radicalise and antagonise a civilian population, and create more terrorists. All evidence shows that it is foreign policies which are percieved as oppressive, dangerous and unfair which foster radicalism against the West. We should abandon this naive, indignant and dangerous misconception that nothing but evil and malice spurs these terrorists.
There’s a rather good interview with Pape here, and there’s plenty of his work available through Google.
Christopher Rossdale
20 Sep 2006 14:48
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Tags: Politics Terrorism
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[Skip to the latest comment]Mathew Mannion
My personal opinion is that I widely agree with this – although I’m not sure I buy into there being little or no link between religious fundamentalism and terrorism. Personally, though, I do think that terrorism shouldn’t be a reason to enforce a change in foreign policy. Blah blah opinion etc.
20 Sep 2006, 15:38
Hamid Sirhan
“They hate us because they hate freedom!”
They hate freedom so much that they’ve been able to kill less than 10,000 Freedom-loving Americans and Europeans in the past 5 years. And that’s despite the Americans blurring the lines between terrorism and any Muslim involved in any violent resistance activity, anywhere on the planet. Meanwhile, the US in it’s freedom-loving mission of granting freedom to everyone in the world except its client states by bombing the freedom-haters into submission and has, in the process killed and maims God knows how many tens of thousands in the same time period.
But its OK. Because they’re all terrorists. And they hate our freedoms. Even the women and children. Who were all being used as human shields. Yes, even when we “accidentally” bomb the red cross. Or hospitals. Or resisdential areas. Or sewage treatment plants. Or if we ever take the hint from our Israeli friends and start uprooting thousands of acres of olive groves because those terrorist-olive-trees hate our freedoms.
So yes, John Reed is absolutely right. In the spirit of Churchillian Magnanimity, those vicious, dirty wogs should be happy when Blair visits, say, Israel and denounces Palestinian “terrorism” while funnelling weapons to Israel via British airports. Can’t see why facilitating the use of over 1 million cluster bomblets in Lebanon alone would piss off any Muslims, or Arabs. Can’t they see we’re doing it for their own good?
20 Sep 2006, 16:48
Political commentator
Islamic Terrorism in Palestine? – Hamid attacks Israel and defends the terrorists.
Death threats over the publication of a silly cartoon? – Hamid attacks Islamophobia in the West and defends the protestors.
Homegrown British Islamic Terrorists carrying out mass murder of their fellow countrymen? Hamid attacks the Government’s foreign policy.
I’m sorry but after reading this guy’s comments on Islam and terrorism for the past year or so I find it hard to take him seriously and cannot for the life of me figure out what someone Islamic would have to do to draw consternation from Hamid.
20 Sep 2006, 21:49
Hamid Sirhan
Well Political Commentator who is so brave as to leave himself nameless! I see you’re a big fan of mine to have taken notice of the odd comment I post the odd Warwick Blogs.
Firstly there is no “Islamic Terrorism” in Palestine. There have been some acts of terror committed by Palestinians against civilians of Israel for secular reasons. Labelling it “Islamic terrorism” is an attempt to sully Islam and to also try to link the Palestinian National movement with various, very different movements involving
Of course nothing the Palestinians could ever do could possibly compare to the decades of apartheid imposed upon the Palestinians – who are being further ghettoised as I type – by the Israelis who impose curfews, death, destruction all in the name of eventually either inducing “Voluntary transfer” (read: ethnic cleansing) or the ethnocide/politicide of the Palestinian people (which amounts to genocide according to the UN definition of genocide.)
So forgive me if I fail to sympathise with Israeli “existential fears” while they continue to deny the existence of the Palestinians as a group and the right of the Palestinians to a state with full sovereignty that is contiguous and has access to the Jordan corridor, to its ports, to its water resources etc. etc.
If you look back over my comments regarding the publication of the cartoon (which was as silly as, say, a German publishing an Anti-semitic cartoon in Der Spiegel) – I defended the right of people to protest but I did not defend and, indeed, condemned any violent action taken.
Perhaps because I can see the bigger picture and don’t believe that a few random Muslims were sitting chatting over a coffee and nargeeleh one day and just happened to decide “Hey you know what, I hate their freedoms. Let’s go bomb the tube!”. Perhaps it’s time that Britain started some introspection and realised that when it throws stones in a pond, there are bound to be ripples? Some dozens of people were killed in the London attack and it was a travesty and a murderous attack, but at the same time it doesn’t compare to the thousands of deaths the British have had a direct hand in.
And I have, by the way, defended Britain’s move to invade Afghanistan.
So your general readings seem to be coloured by the usual “those darkies don’t have souls, therefore any action we take against them is insignificant but if any of them dare to have the gall to strike at us, then we should make sure they regret it!!!” and therefore failing to see the forest for the trees is a failing you’re somewhat committed to, but try to characterise my writings properly please :D.
Thank you!
And next time you post it would be nice to know, at least, with whom I am having the pleasure of talking! Or are mindless, anonymous ad hominem snipes your forte?
21 Sep 2006, 05:44
Vincent Carroll-Battaglino
well played.
21 Sep 2006, 19:05
Gareth Herbert
I’ll reply to this properly when I get a chance but for now I’d like to point out a fairly amusing discrepancy between two comments made by the interviewee:
Comment A: “The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion”
Comment B: “Suicide terrorism is not a supply-limited phenomenon where there are just a few hundred around the world willing to do it because they are religious fanatics”.
Beautiful.
25 Sep 2006, 00:07
Gareth Herbert
Lol – I misread that last sentence, I interpreted there as being a comma where there was not, I realise there was no actual discrepancy.
25 Sep 2006, 00:11
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