Countering terrorism
Joshua Sinai
Jerrold Post's "The Mind of the Terrorist: The Psychology of
Terrorism from the IRA to Al-Qaeda" provides a framework for
understanding modern-day terrorism's psychological mindset.
Such an approach is crucial, Dr. Post argues, because in order to
deter terrorists in a way that is effective and durable one must
understand their psychology and motivations. Dr. Post's framework is
applied to more than 15 terrorist groups, some of whom began their
operations in the late 1960s.
Dr. Post, a psychiatrist and veteran terrorism analyst, is currently
professor of psychiatry and political psychology at George Washington
University. Earlier, he had a 21-year career at the CIA, serving as
director of the Center for Analysis of Personality and Political
Behaviour.
Readers will find Dr. Post's book especially valuable for its
capsulated histories and profiles of the world's terrorist groups and
their leaders.
Some leaders, such as the Peruvian Shining Path's Abimael Guzman and
the LTTE's Vellupillai Prabhakaran are charismatic "consummate
narcissists" who consider their groups to be extensions of themselves.
The PLO's Yasser Arafat, Dr. Post argues, may have been driven by his
troubled relationship with his father to become the "father" of the
Palestinian nation.
While the Arafat scenario is plausible, one may disagree with Dr.
Post's characterization of Osama bin Laden as a leader of a dispersed
organization who delegates responsibilities to subordinates.
To the contrary, published reports show bin Laden - at least through
Sept. 11, 2001, to be a micro-manager who forbade his subordinates from
changing direction. He may not be able to do that today because U.S.
pressure has forced al Qaeda to decentralise its operations, but it is
doubtful that his "personality" has changed.
It's disappointing that Dr. Post's profiles of Hezbollah's Sheikh
Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas' Ismail Haniya receive little psychological
treatment, except for brief accounts of their careers.
Some of Dr. Post's assumptions about today's terrorists are out of
date. The most glaring is his reliance on a typology of terrorism
(developed by Alex Schmid in 1983, but which even he doesn't use
anymore), which has little contemporary relevance. Its categorization of
the "new religious terrorism," for example, may have represented a new
development in 1983, but today is commonplace.
Similarly, Dr. Post's generational pathways to terrorism matrix,
which he developed in 1984 also is not applicable to contemporary times.
It postulates that loyalty or disloyalty to one's parents and the
parents' relationship to the regime are important determinants of
whether a terrorist becomes a nationalist-separatist or social
revolutionary.
Today's most dangerous terrorists are religiously fundamentalist, but
his matrix does not account for their psychological origins. Moreover,
an individual's family disposition does not necessarily play a role in
that person's decision to become a terrorist. No one doubts that
parental relations shape one's upbringing, but other factors play more
crucial roles in an individual's decision to become a terrorist.
Today's terrorists are driven by a radicalization process that has
little to do with their parental relations. In some cases, terrorist
groups recruit operatives directly, while in others, such as al Qaeda,
recruitment is through friends and family members, with many recruits
radicalized over the Internet.
How can modern-day terrorism be defeated? Dr. Post formulates a
psychological warfare programme based on four elements: Inhibiting
potential terrorists from joining terrorist groups by de-romanticizing
terrorism and providing members with alternate pathways for redressing
grievances; promoting dissension, mistrust and organizational paralysis
within a group; facilitating exit from the group by creating amnesty
programs; and reducing support for the group and its leaders by
de-legitimizing its leaders and marginalising the group's appeal.
Dr. Post concludes that the plague of terrorism will decline when its
reservoir of recruits is decreased. "Hope is the antidote to despair. It
is only when youth begin to be hopeful about their future and fully
participate in their societies that we will see the plague of terrorism
decline. And that will take a comprehensive program sustained over
decades to alter these deep-seated attitudes, for when hatred is bred in
the bone, it does not easily yield."
"The Mind of the Terrorist" is a useful overview of modern-day
terrorism and a credible starting point for serious counterterrorism
efforts.
(Joshua Sinai is a program manager for counterterrorism studies with
the Analysis Corp.)
Washington Times
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