Terrorist Recognition Handbook 344
| Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities, Second Edition | |
| author | Malcolm Nance |
| pages | 480 |
| publisher | CRC |
| rating | 10 |
| reviewer | Ben Rothke |
| ISBN | 978-1420071832 |
| summary | Perhaps the definitive text on terrorist recognition. |
The
main theme of the book, as detailed in chapter 1 is
critical
awareness.
The book notes that criminal investigators spend years
studying criminal behavior to better understand and counter
crime. Nance writes that the
field of terrorism is no different as it is a specialized subject that
requires serious study and requires that those in the front line of defense be
as knowledge as possible.
In
a later chapter, Nance gives the Iraq war as an example of a group of leaders
that were not as knowledge as possible and ignored the advice of those that
were as knowledge as possible.
Had the Bush administration consulted Nance, a trillion
dollars and thousands of lives could have been saved in the Iraq
debacle.
The
book is divided into 5 sections comprising 21 heavily-detailed
chapters. Each chapter is a
progression in detailing, understanding and identifying
terrorists. In chapter after
chapter, the book details every aspect of terrorism and indentifies all of the
various elements. The various
aspects of different guns, explosives, and other elements are described and
categorized in detail.
In
the section on suicide bombers, an important point the book makes is that
contrary to popular belief, suicide bombers are rarely
insane. They are most often
intelligent, rational individuals with beliefs that those in the West finds
difficult to comprehend.
Nance does not for a second rationalize the actions of
such groups and individuals.
But notes that it is critical to understand why they do it
in order to prevent future attacks.
Chapter
8 is quite valuable in that it provides a comprehensive overview of how
terrorist cells operate and are organized.
While the cell is the fundamental unit of a terrorist
group; cell operations and their members are the least understood part of
terrorism. Their operations
are always secret and never seen, until they
attack. The chapter details
the many types of terrorist cells, operative membership pools, and how cells
and leadership communicate.
Chapter
19 is a fascinating primer on al-Qaeda and the global extremist
insurgency. The chapter
details how al-Qaeda divides its enemies into two categories:
Far Enemies and Near
Enemies. The terms are taken from the Islamic concept of the
community and those who oppose it.
While the far enemies of al-Qaeda are the USA, Australia,
UK, Europe and Israel, the near enemies are those Moslem's or nations that
al-Qaeda sees as corrupted governments or apostate
rules. These include the
governments of over 20 countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bangladesh,
India and many more comprising billions of people.
While
the post-9/11 attacks from coalition forces have indeed hurt al-Qaeda and
killed many of its top leaders, Nance notes that al-Qaeda now acts a terror
strategy consultancy. This
transformation of al-Qaeda is in response to the loss of its base of
operations in Afghanistan and the displacement of its leadership to the
Pakistani border.
The most significant
changes were a shift of operational responsibility from the regional terror
commanders, who executed a long awaited plan for jihad operations, to a more
radical and difficult to detect posture: jihadist who were self-starting and
worked independently from al-Qaeda.
The
most significant changes al-Qaeda's structure occurred when it was able to
co-opt the Jordanian Salafist group Tawhed Wal Jihad and organize the foreign
fighters into Iraq into al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
AQI changed the structure of the military committee's
roles dramatically and Iraq would become the cornerstone of al-Qaeda's global
operations. Much of the
invasion of Iraq was premised on a link between Iraq and
al-Qaeda. There was never
such a link, but the war turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy, as al-Qaeda
is now a mainstay in Iraq.
The
book writes that it is important to note that contrary to popular belief,
al-Qaeda is not a single terrorist group, rather a collection of like-minded
organizations that cooperate and receive funds, advice and orders from Osama
bin Laden and his supporters. al-Qaeda has transformed itself from a physical
chain of terrorist training camps to a virtual network that uses the Internet
to create a network centric information and advisory
body. Nance therefore notes
that al-Qaeda has transformed itself from a global terrorism operation into a
terrorism management consultancy.
The 6 main aspects of this
consultancy are that al-Qaeda: provides inspiration, contributes finances,
shares collective knowledge, provides weapons resource and contacts, accepts
responsibility and releases video propaganda.
Besides
a few minor historical errors, some grammatical and punctuation mistakes, and
not a lot of details about cyber-based terrorism,
Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's Manual
for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities is a most
important book in that it avoids all of the hype, politics and bias that come
along with such titles, and simply focuses on its task at hand, to be a field
guide for anti-terrorist and counter-terrorist professionals to use to prevent
attacks.
Such
a title is sorely needed by groups such as the TSA, who still think that
anti-terrorism means having people remove their shoes at
airports. The book notes
that the European approach of guarded vigilance
via a sustained level of anti-terrorism readiness and
awareness is a much better concept than the US approach of spiking to
heightened alert levels.
The
Terrorist Recognition Handbook is a
must-read for anyone tasked with or interested in anti-terrorism
activities. One would hope
that every TSA and Homeland Security manager and employee get a copy of this
monumental reference.
It would change the face of TSA and the Department of
Homeland Security, and might perhaps really enable them to identify
terrorists, and not simply require the elderly to take off their support shoes
at airport checkpoints.
Ben Rothke is the author
of
Computer
Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should
Know.
You can purchase Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities, Second Edition from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
That's easy (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:That's easy (Score:5, Insightful)
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In all seriousness, there has been all sorts of hyperbole which is about as reliable as those urban legend emails you get about the guy that got aids from a doorknob or mouse turds in his coke. Propaganda comes in all forms, whether it's "drugs support terrorism" or "piracy supports terrorism" or whatever. It's all BS.
Calling an organization "terrorist" is like calling someone a Nazi. In fact, Nazism is more offensive to me, but you see that word so watered
Re:just as bad or worse than the RIAA (Score:3, Funny)
If he's drinking this [photobucket.com] look out for car bombs!
this guy [wordpress.com] would have ME calling the Department of Homeland Cowardice in a New York minute! And how about this guy? [theodoresworld.net]
Look at da bomb in that terrorist's [johnseiler.com] hand!
this asshat [punchstock.com] is not a terrorist.
SCARY TERRORIST! [vox.com] ANOTHER SCARY TERRORIST! [collegecandy.com] EVEN SCARIER TERRORIST! [wordpress.com] And OMFG the scariest one of al!!!! [thebestpag...iverse.net]
RUN! RUN
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"In the section on suicide bombers, an important point the book makes is that contrary to popular belief, suicide bombers are rarely insane. They are most often intelligent, rational individuals with beliefs that those in the West finds difficult to comprehend. Nance does not for a second rationalize the actions of such groups and individuals. But notes that it is critical to understand why they do it in order to prev
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Although this has been known for some time. It's not poor, defenseless people who become terrorists, no matter how much mr. Obama would like them to be. It's knowledgeable, rational, intelligent and rich people, who have but to choose from the thousands of opportunities the world offers them (like he himself is, or any presidential candidate obviously).
yes, people have forgotten the lessons of the seventies about the Baader-Meinhof group.
Rothke=Radical Zionist (Score:2, Troll)
Anyone who thinks that Daniel Pipes is (Score:3, Insightful)
He invented and promulgates the cognitive dissonance that is summarised by the phrase: "Islamofascism."
He's a real Israeli, dual-loyalist and "newspeak" maker of the first (lowest) rank. Pipes was teh founder of The Middle East Forum - purportedly a 'think-tank', really a propaganda and media policing agent for radical Israeli military/political objectives.
Daniel Pipe is an expert on propaganda (Score:3, Informative)
He favours profiling and internment of Muslims in the United States.
The Daniel Pipes [sourcewatch.org] entry at sourcewatch is quite a read.
moderator abuse (Score:3, Insightful)
The Sad Part (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:The Sad Part (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead it appears that his book is more oriented towards explaining the workings of a terrorist organization. How they think, how they act, how they recruit, and what factors increase the chances of a terrorist act.
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We need more fact-based books focused at the people leading the military and advising the President on how to do so.
Re:The Sad Part (Score:4, Interesting)
It never fails to amaze me that, when faced with the monumental failure of our bureaucracies to prevent 9/11, we respond by creating yet another bureaucracy. And, to top it off, we allow the dang thing to be unionized, thus ensuring it's utter failure and moribundity for all time.
Sometimes I wonder if we deserve what our forefathers left to us.
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The truth about prevention... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing the TSA does is reduce the likelihood such an attack will occur on a plane. It's a huge waste of money that's simply a security blanket for the uninformed.
Re:The truth about prevention... (Score:5, Insightful)
People in security know full well that no method will guarantee 100% attack prevention. Reducing the likelihood and frequency of attacks is the goal.
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Terrorists stand in line? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really effective security would be to bring every last troop home, and place them in every port and border crossing into the US. Even more effective than their inspections would be the fact that they aren't in foreign countries blowing stuff up. It's very difficult to recruit people to kill the infidel when he's across the ocean behind hundreds of thousands of highly trained Marines, minding his own business.
Unfortunately this would require leaders in government (Republicans and Democrats) to do an about-face on how they deal with terrorism, and as anyone knows, getting a politician to admit a mistake is harder than getting one to tell the truth in the first place. But we're the ones to blame - when the greatest threat to our way of life, according to Sean Hannity, is that "we may be driving around in Yugos," you wonder if the society is worth saving in the first place.
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Really effective security would be to bring every last troop home, and place them in every port and border crossing into the US.
You do realize that the American taxpayer funds over 700 (seven-frakking-hundred, yes) military bases on foreign soil? And that Al Qaeda was initially pissed about the bases in Saudi territory, so it could be said that the global occupation under way is the catalyst for said terrorism? You want the USA to shut all those down?
Call me when this revolution of yours starts, I want to post it on youtube.
But seriously, I wonder at the loud scoffing denials heard from most people at the mention of an "american em
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Umm.. Yes. By invitation. With the possible exception of the two bases in Okinawa, Japan and Ramstein, Germany. These two bases were granted to us as part of the surrender treaties from both countries at the end of WW2. However, I can assure you th
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More currently, the proposed "Iraqi" oil law is a 100% American creation that tilts the playing field in the favor of Exxon et al.
Oh and the so called "aid" money is usually nothing more than subsidies for well-connected American businesses. They'll announce a few billion in aid to cou
No clothes. (Score:4, Interesting)
But I think that you've just proven my essential point: the american 'hegemony' is founded on some astoundingly well-crafted pervasive propaganda at home, with the theme of being a global benefactor.
Ask around: "why do we perpetually have half a million troops overseas in over 100 countries?" The reasoning of the american public in justifying such a massive permanent deployment in so many bases is very thin, if not jingoistic and naive, or outright frightening to citizens of other countries. Americans just don't believe in the scale of clandestine maneuvering through their history, and they have an essential sense of manifest destiny.
21C hegemony (shorthand for empire) does not resemble victorian Brittania, in the way that late post-industrial capitalism doesn't resemble feudalism.
equally nonsensical (Score:2)
If you reduce the list of vulnerable targets, you reduce the probability of being hit ipso facto. For example, terrorist methodology is not equally adaptable to any target whatsoever. A lot of the reason airplanes are hit are because they're high in the sky, which means (1) even a small amount of damage can bring them down, killing everybody, and (2) they're very isolated from effective and timely outside help. The same kind of methodology that will wor
Re:The truth about prevention... (Score:4, Interesting)
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The likelyhood of an attack on a plane. The TSA does, on the other hand, provide tempting targets in the form of people waiting in line for security checks.
I, for one, actually believe a government can significantly reduce the likelihood of terrorist attacks.
Yeah, well, the chance of getting killed in a terrorist attack in the US is actually lower than the chance of accidentally drowning in a bathtub, so one can question the merits of
Missing the point entirely (Score:2)
We have hundreds of millions of tons of cargo coming in and out of the country with zero inspection.
We have hundreds of miles of unprotected borders.
Where is our military force, sworn to protect us against all enemies, foreign and domestic? Across the ocean bombing infrastructure that we have to rebuild, because Americans don't want
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"the subject is white" = allow
"the subject is not white" = deny
No book necessary (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think this book is mis-information put out by al-CIAda.
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I had similar thoughts. I wonder if the author bothers to dive into the collaboration between the CIA and Pakistani ISI during the creation of al-Qaeda back in the 1970s and 1980s.
Looking the wrong way (Score:2)
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As a counterpoint to your statement about very few governmental agencies being considered sponsors of terrorism,
Daniel Pipes? An expert? Feh. (Score:3, Interesting)
Posting anonymously to avoid having to deal with all the Slashcons who will pile on to tell me that all the Mooslimes are TEH TERRORIZTS!
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The only thing that guy's an expert on is hating Arabs and Muslims. He's a radical, bigoted putz. Fuck him.
No, he isn't. In all his articles he makes the distinction between Muslims proper and what he calls "Islamofascism", i.e., people who are de facto fascists (in the technical meaning of the word, not the liberal "swear word" version) and who use Islam as nothing more than an ideological wrapping for their (nonreligious) political goals.
There are nuts out there that pretend both things to be the same, but Pipes surely isn't among them.
Re:Daniel Pipes? An expert? Feh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, although Pipes recognizes pretty clearly the distinction between, on one side, the moderate religious Muslims, and on the other the radical authoritarian pseudo-religious political nuts we all despise, he doesn't like the term "Islamofascism", as what they pursue isn't a fascist regime proper.
Basically, fascism was/is always nationalistic, and bound to the concept of a totalitarian central government ruling society. What these guys pursue, on the contrary, is a kind of stateless internationalistic decentralized totalitarianism. Thus, not quite the same thing. Both authoritarian, both totalitarian, but in very different ways.
He has some suggestions for naming this thing, basically variations around the word "Islamist", "Militant Islam", "Militant Islamism" etc., but I don't think any of those sound right. "Islamofascism" might not be accurate, but I guess we'll have to stick to it for se simple lack of a better alternative.
Re:Daniel Pipes? An expert? Feh. (Score:5, Interesting)
What Daniel Pipes really is a hack writer and pundit for the establishment. His role is to lay an ideological foundation for US foreign policy that is already being carried out. His father was one of the main hawks against Stalinist Eastern Block style Communism during the 60's. He makes a living creating "boogeyman" stereotypes of the people who resist the imposition of neo-liberal economic policies and foreign meddling.
The fact that he runs a group that systematically harasses left leaning university professors in the United States only adds to the fact that he is a rightwing political opportunist who profits off of demonizing cultures and creating racist stereotypes. His group Campus Watch specializes in taking anonymous unsubstantiated claims of conservative students who are upset over their grade. He's not a legitimate academic and has no place in the culture of discussion that academia should be. If all he did was just advance a position, no matter how much I disagreed with it, that would be fine; but intimidating and harassing one's political opponents is not free speech.
Re:Daniel Pipes? An expert? Feh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Daniel Pipes? An expert? Feh. (Score:5, Insightful)
And this was a bad thing because... ?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's a video clip of the full lecture so you can judge for yourself:
http://www.rit.edu/academicaffairs/etc/gannett/videos/2005-04-14.ram
Are you actually willing to substantiate your claims?
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He absolutely is a hack, and his primary agenda is disenfranchisement and marginalization of American Muslims. He thinks every mosque in the US is infiltrated with radicals and "Islamists" who want to overthrow our government. Doubtful Pipes has ever set foot in a mosque, though he's been invited.
His idea of a moderate Muslim is someone who calls himself Muslim but doesn't practice Islam, e.g., people like Irshad Manji -- the heroine of the anti-Muslim bigots in our country. (sorry if you like her --
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http://www.mpac.org/article.php?id=72
This is easy! (Score:2, Funny)
Speaking of terroists... (Score:5, Interesting)
A must-read for anyone concerned about the direction our nation is heading.
Here's an excerpt that's very relevant to the topic in question:
Good paragraph (Score:2)
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And to think this similar sentiment was stated over forty years ago. See my sig.
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I think people that pay cash for a one-way airline ticket need extra scrutiny.
I think people that move money around internationally through sketchy banks need some examination.
I think people with terrorist ties need some looking at.
If the DHS is set up to fail, they appear to have not had any failures in
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I think people that pay cash for a one-way airline ticket need extra scrutiny.
Huh, why?
The other two I can see and understand. But one-way tickets? More common (and commonly needed) than you might imagine. Cash? You're well-identified on an airplane ticket. Perhaps you don't have to show identity before you buy one, but you pretty much have to at the gate. And it has to match the name on the ticket, or all sorts of kerfluffle appears (and I've witnessed people missing flights for a simple misspelling of a name).
And I think that was part of the point--if you're going to look at
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I thought I heard cash for flights and one-way are possible indicators of potential issues. I did not dream that one up, you get harassed if you do that these days. just like if you change airlines last minute you get the special search.
I would assume they have some sort of formula to figure this stuff out. Meet n criteria to set off flags or alarms. Of course, correlation does not imply causation, but it can be a starting point or filter.
In fault diagnosis, you have type 1 and type 2 failure. False al
Re:Speaking of terroists... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's Cory's math, not mine.
What should we do? Stick our heads in the sand and ignore the threat? Rationalize that you are more likely to die in a car accident, so take no action?
I'm not advocating a course of action here...I'm merely pointing out that a "terrorist test" is doomed to failure.
If the DHS is set up to fail, they appear to have not had any failures in the last few years. May not be perfect, but maybe it is working?
Excellent point. On a related noted, I have a rock that repels tigers...perhaps you would be interested in purchasing it.
Seriously, can you point out any successes? After all, if I put on a bulletproof vest, and spend the next few hours without someone shooting at me, that cannot be taken as proof that the vest can successfully stop bullets.
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http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/gc_1188408340457.shtm [dhs.gov]
There are some plots that have been foiled, but I am not sure checking my shoes at the airport helped.
If you live in a war zone, I would keep my bulletproof vest on. Just because you did not get shot at today does not mean you are safe for tomorrow.
It is about balancing risk and cost. If we wanted no terrorists to take over planes, we could all strip nekkid and handcuff us while on board. Someone has to make a call about how far to go to get some sort of eff
Re:Speaking of terroists... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're joking, right? The only references on that page I saw pertaining to foiled terrorist attacks were the case of the "binary explosives" plot and the case of the Fort Dix Six. Regarding the former, it has already been debunked so many times that I'm surprised the DHS hasn't removed the reference from sheer shame. In the case of the latter, six guys who plotted to take on a military base with a couple of firearms, and were caught because they took their jihad training video to Circuit City to burn to DVD? Seriously? We're supposed to buy this?
Every single "terrorist threat" since 9/11 (which is itself suspect) has been either a ridiculous exaggeration, an entrapment scheme, or an outright hoax.
If you live in a war zone, I would keep my bulletproof vest on. Just because you did not get shot at today does not mean you are safe for tomorrow.
1) I don't live in a war zone. Neither do you.
2) You missed my point most spectacularly. Until a real bullet hits that vest, there is no proof that it can deflect bullets.
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There are more options for what to do than "anything" and "nothing". We should do things that make sense, and that work. If someone points out that one thing we could do doesn't work, it does not make sense to say "Oh well, we gotta do something". We shouldn't do things that don't work, not even if we c
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It is a balancing act, you balance security with cost (time, money, privacy, convenience).
Someone makes that call at DHS. So now I have to take my shoes off for inspection after the crazy shoe bomber.
Is it unreasonable to have some sort of secondary screening if you set off some set of flags? So you are detained a few minutes. That makes sense.
If the screening does not work, point to a story where a real terrorist made it on the plane with weapons or contraband. Not a test case, a real missed diagnosis
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So it does not work perfectly, I believe your math. What should we do? Stick our heads in the sand and ignore the threat? Rationalize that you are more likely to die in a car accident, so take no action?
That's not 'rationalizing.' That's proper allocation of resources. I could spend a really long time optimizing code that access data in memory and get it to be a few milliseconds faster, but if most of the time spent in the code is writing to disk, then I would be an idiot to not work on optimizing that aspect of the program instead.
I think people that pay cash for a one-way airline ticket need extra scrutiny.
I think people that move money around internationally through sketchy banks need some examination.
I'm not willing to jeopardize the freedoms and the privacy of thousands of innocent people to catch one or two criminals. The cure you're proposing is worse than the dis
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There is no way to "win" a war against an abstract concept. But, of course, it's not the government's goal to "win" anything. Winning implies an end, and the goal is a perpetual state of war and terror.
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Its like NP complete problem. You have an algorithm that works, but it doesn't scale. If you can make an approximation solution that trims the set to a reasonable size where the scaling problems of algorithm don't hurt you as much, you have a win.
So, it doesn't matter that it identifies 10,000 wrong people. What matters is how do you deal w
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While that may be true enough for the hypothetical case you referenced, real life gets a bit more difficult.
Instead of a hypothetical population of one million, try the population of NYC (20 million).
Instead of a hypothetical "nearly perfect" terrorist test with 100% sensitivity and 99% specificity (1% false positives, 0% false negatives), try
So... test them again! (Score:3, Interesting)
The glaring problem with his logic is that if you repeat the test your accuracy will tend to go up, and if you apply complimentary tests, you get even better accuracy. The original writer assumes that you test, then you execute, then you forget... Well that happens, to be sure, but it's a problem of r
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Wow, thanks for mentioning that book -- I am downloading it as I type this.
The problem is that, as with most things of this sort, the people who most need to understand it -- those who blindly support our guvmint's invasive, Constitution-busting, rights-trampling data mining in the name of the "War on Terrorism" (less known under its true internal working title as "The War to Gain More Complete Control Over ALL Citizens' Lives") -- fall into one of two categories. They are either (1)too math-illiterate to
Re:Speaking of terrorists... (Score:5, Insightful)
Um...I have never claimed to be...and to the best of my knowledge, neither has Cory Doctorow.
Neither am I, for that matter...
So...what was your point, then?
but my wife went through several classes on statistics...
You're kidding, right?
their approach to statistics is not so simple as "accuracy" only. They have several different terms, all more or less seeming similar to the layman. I don't recall the words, but they more or less correlated to concepts such as:
False positive rate.
False negative rate.
Overall rate of accurate test.
Your objection does not invalidate the argument in my OP, it only strengthens it. The other concepts you listed do not mitigate the problem of false positives - on the contrary, they only exacerbate it.
The argument in the OP assumed (for argument's sake) that while the false positive rate was 1%, the false negative rate was 0%. If you want to make the false negative rate a non-zero number, go ahead, but you'll quickly find that it makes the overall results even worse, not better.
Using the correct, field-specific term may eliminate some of your objection.
Actually, the terms are quite correct, and your argument only succeeds in raising additional objections.
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See my response to spotter's post.
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It's bullshit. When something is as rare as a terrorist, any time your "test" gives a positive match the odds are vastly in favor of you having
if you buy that book ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Ah, but even more useful... (Score:3, Funny)
Identifying terrorist doesn't solve the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Its like the problem with Vietnam for the US and Afghanistan for the Soviet. Sometimes you cannot win by force. Either it has to come to understand, negotiation, or at least putting them at arms length such as building a massive security wall like Israel.
Having military bases in these people's lands, other throwing legitimate governments for over 50 years, and backing unpopular dictators is what causes them to attack us. Not because we believe in freedom or a different religion. We stop messing with things over there and when we do that the common man who currently supports the terrorists and their Jihad will be more apathetic and the popular support base the terrorists enjoy now will go away.
Re:Identifying terrorist doesn't solve the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
> there is ten more to replace him.
While you are correct somewhat here your premise as how to combat it is flawed.
When dealing with terrorism you need to determine why those ten would want to replace him. For example if you were fire a missile into a market during its busy hours to kill one terrorist and maim/kill many bystanders. Actions like that is what grows more terrorists.
Even if you don't do this then the actions tend to be related to civil rights abuses. Terrorism is normally the weapon of the desperate against an opposing force. If they are on our side then we call them "freedom fighters".
Ignoring the middle east the best example of this is Northern Ireland. Prior to the civil rights abuses in Northern Ireland the IRA didn't really have any real following. Sure you still get the gangsters and loons joining, but those who would normally define as rational/sane would of been in the minority if at all. It took actions from the British like Internment and Bloody Sunday to really get the ranks of the IRA up. That lead to 30 years of violence.
Once civil rights abuses were addressed in Northern Ireland the violence and support went away. It is not gone. You will always have some level of people who will disagree with actions. But the point is to stop the recruits. That you can't fight with weapons.
thousands of lives could have been saved (Score:4, Insightful)
But now that Iraq is a terrorist training ground, it sounds like it'd be a good book for the Bush Administration to read. If only this were the kind of Administration that reads.
It's a poor 'guide' (Score:5, Interesting)
This book is the biggest load of cruft I've had the displeasure of pursuing in a long, long time.
Nearly a complete, waste of time and money and is more than likely bound to spark more than a few more uber-paranoid people locking themselves up in their trailer with a shotgun pointing out the window.
The only perks about this farce was the netural informational aspects such as how individual terrorists as well as terrorist groups and cells form, operate and work as well as the mind-set, cultural and historical information presented.
As a "guide" it's practically useless, as a source of information about the how and why terrorists operate and think, it IS fairly interesting.
Too bad that information is often available (in bits and pieces) via other sources on the net.
State Terrorism is a far greater threat (Score:5, Informative)
Then of course there is the famous case of US support for terrorism in Nicaragua, for which the country was condemned by the World Court. The death toll was around 50,000. One of the things the US was condemned for in that case was the mining of Nicaraguan harbours, putting civilian shipping in danger. If Al Qaeda did the same thing, it would be immediately recognised as a terrorist act.
I question Daniel Pipes being credited as expert.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I question Daniel Pipes being credited as exper (Score:2)
He probably had to be "hustled out" because some of the little brownshirts-in-training wouldn't let him speak, which seems to be a favorite tactic of leftist protesters at schools. Why argue when you can simply overwhelm a speaker and his audience with your friends... often physically taking over a speaking hall... and gamble that the university administration will be too
Daniel Pipes? (Score:5, Informative)
Just so we know who we are labeling with the sterile description of "expert."
-Ted
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Just so we're clear, this is the daniel pipes who started the Middle East Forum ("one of a number of hardline neoconservative think tanks devoted to promoting a broad war on terror focused on the Middle East.") and its offspring, Campus Watch (a group intended to monitor middle east studies on college campuses, in a rather mccarthy-like manner). The one who has been a consistent warmonger (from vietnam onward). The one who wrote in The National Review:
"Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene...All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most."
This is complete nonsense. Pipes' statement was taken out of context (mostly by radical far-left/Islamist propagandists). Pipes wasn't expressing any prejudices himself. His goal in it was to characterize the thinking of Western Europeans, not give his own views. Here is Pipes:
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/198 [danielpipes.org]
In retrospect, I should either have put the words "brown-skinned peoples" and "strange foods" in quotation marks or made it clearer that I was explaining European attitudes rather than my own."
And he's basically right! I don't like it. I think it's ignorant. but he's right when you think about it. A majority of westerners ARE orientalists in that way. What can we do?
Thanks for that
Anti- vs Counter-terrorism (Score:2, Informative)
Anti-terrorism == work to kill the terrorists themselves
Perhaps the usage has changed since I went to my CT training courses in the U.S. Army, but I really, REALLY hope that the TSA isn't conducting anti-terrorism operations! "Sorry, you're on the no-fly list, please step into the euthanasia chamber to your right..."
There are no terrorists (Score:2)
Re:There are no terrorists (Score:4, Insightful)
really, Really, REALLY old news! (Score:2)
short summary: hooknoses
Review nitpick (Score:2)
Um, no, that's something we all knew about before. I've never heard anyone classify homicide bombers as "insane," or unintelligent, or irrational in the classic sense of the word.
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We don't need a book (Score:2)
You can always tell a terrorist
By his cologne and the watch on his wrist
It says, "I'm the kind of man
Who can take off anywhere, take off anywhere."
Clutch - Power Players
Doesn't address the fundamental problem (Score:3, Insightful)
The truth is, we are not going to win any war against terrorism - it's like the 'Gumby Brain Surgery'(ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumbys [wikipedia.org]). We have to understand why something so utterly irrational as terrorism can not only exist, but spread rapidly; really, I would have thought that much was obvious. The good news is that it isn't impossible; as the book suggests, these people are rational, often intelligent, and if they can arrive at the conclusion that they have to go and blow themselves and other people up, then we can follow their logic. I should think that there is a good chance that we will discover one or two points that we can address intelligently, thus breaking the rationale of their reasoning. This is all about popular support - the terrorists have popular support because they can argue strongly for their goals; we can make their arguments weak if we know what we are doing, and once they lose popular support, they will soon cease to be a threat.
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*Ducks, runs for cover and watches his karma go up in smoke!*
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in the spirit of the book review...
4000+ dead
over a trillion $ spent,
all u got to say is about gaffes?
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All of you other countries lost the right to have the US stay out of world affairs. The US tried to avoid both world wars, and was brought in by plots of other nations. Now, the US is going to have its hands in whatever it can reach. We get attacked when we leave the rest of you alone, and we get attacked when we don't. We m
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A terroist action is an action in which combatants actively TARGET non-combatants with physical harm (i.e. civilians, not other soldiers), for political purposes.
Please note that this definition of terrorism:
1. Does NOT include the majority of rebels, freedom fighters, or other revolitionaries thar are respected.
2. Does not include wars.
3. DOES include the CIA itself, as they have admitted to targetting noncombatants in the