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Title: Terror in the Name of God : Why Religious Militants Kill by Jessica Stern ISBN: 0-06-050532-X Publisher: Ecco Pub. Date: 14 August, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.62 (21 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Look Behind The Hype
Comment: The topic of terrorism used to be in the political realm, but the past decade has seen a decided shift to the religious. Professor Stern has done an admirable job trying to get past generalities and actually study the people and their motivations. Through an unprecedented collection of interviews with the actual terrorists themselves, she helps to lift the veil a little bit, and peer underneath it. It's admirable that she undertakes this work when it in the post 9/11 world it is fraught with politics and colored by personal views, and also an issue that has no easy answer. Terrorism is in the eye of the viewer. What is one person's terrorist is another's justified protector and fighter. To see this, look at the breadth of reviews already posted here. She tries to find both sides in each movement she studies, looking how the movement came to be, and what keeps it going. What makes people send their children to be martyrs to a movement? Stern attempts to discover what is behind this. The book is thorough, but not overly dense. One of the biggest drawbacks is that Stern's academic background shines through, and sometimes the prose is a bit dry. But this is the best work I've read so far to examine terror movements both domestic and international. Well worth the read if you are interested in learning more on this hot button issue.
Rating: 4
Summary: Fighting Terrorism with Brains Not Political Rhetoric
Comment: In this lucid, intelligent study, Professor Jessica Stern brings us face to face with members of some of most notorious terrorist organizations around the globe and introduces us to their point of view without making excuses for them or losing site of the fact that they are premeditated mass-murderers. This is not only a remarkable feat but also an extremely necessary one. Famous strategists have argued throughout history that the only way to defeat a powerful enemy is to understand how it thinks. This is especially true of global terrorism whose practitioners are often stateless, furtive, flexible, and remarkably regenerative. Few people are as qualified to examine this subject as Stern. Not only has she researched and taught terrorism at prestigious government organizations and universities in the United States, but also, she personally interviewed numerous terrorist cadres and leaders both in captivity and while they were at large.
This book warrants a couple of cautionary statements. First, readers should not confuse it with sociologist, Mark Jurgensmeyer's similarly titled study, "Terror in the Mind of God" which was published in 1998. In that book, Jurgensmeyer provides a sociological study of global terrorists that adduces common modes of thought to a variety of terrorist organizations around the globe. Second, this book will not appeal to anyone who clings to the comforting but woefully inadequate belief that terrorists are simply "evil doers" who are "jealous of our freedoms." Terrorism certainly is an evil phenomenon, and many sections of this book depict the author's moral struggle to empathize with people who plan and carry out unspeakable acts. But as Stern points out, we can only effectively combat terrorism when we place ourselves in the minds of terrorists and attempt to understand their thinking.
TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS
One of the most important contributions of this book is the fact that it provides a functional taxonomy of terrorist organizations. Stern demonstrates that terrorist movements range from individual practitioners and leaderless groups, to complex hierarchical organizations, and ultimately to massive, transnational "franchises" that incorporate all others. Individuals or "lone wolf avengers" as Stern calls them include examples such as the notorious Unibomber, while at the other end of the scale massive, transnational terrorist "franchises" include al Quaeda which recruits a variety of different people for different roles whether they are skilled specialists, or merely individuals that possess the required citizenship and language skills for a specific operation.
TERRORIST MOTIVATIONS
Perhaps more important is Stern's examination of terrorist motivations. In many cases, terrorist organizations-however reprehensible their acts may be-do possess legitimate grievances most of which center around brutality and humiliation suffered at the hands of a more powerful force. But in numerous instances, Stern finds that terrorists often depart from their original grievances until they are committing acts of terror as both a business and a lifestyle. In Kashmir, for example, Stern found that terrorists who originally opposed the brutal treatment of Kashmiri citizens by Indian police and soldiers later benefited from their plight because it provided them with a source of funding and recruits. Ironically, these same terrorists eventually collaborated with corrupt Indian military officials and members of India's organized crime in order to further achieve their goals. Their original "mission" became obscured and the terrorists-as so often happens-began to operate more out of economic necessity and habit than in order to redress a grievance.
TERRORISM AS A PRODUCT
As strange as it may seem, Stern notes that terrorist organizations must often market themselves and vie for funding in the same manner as NGOs and startup companies. In order to attract financial backers and popular support, terrorist organizations frequently try to sell their missions. Prior to the attacks of September 11th for example, al Quaeda rarely mentioned the plight of the Palestinians. But after the attacks, al Quaeda immediately mentioned the Palestinians in their broadcast speeches in order to attract the sympathy of moderate Moslems who might otherwise be alienated by the scale and brutality of September 11th.
TERRORISM AND GLOBALIZATION
Despite their outspoken opposition to globalization, many terrorist organizations, like their counterparts in the business world, fully exploit it in order to develop trans-national capabilities. Al Quaeda for example has franchise groups all over the world and in the past it has acquired financially insolvent groups such as Egyptian Islamic Jihad. In South America's un-patrolled tri border area (where Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina meet) terrorist groups from all over the world including white supremacists from the United States and Islamic fundamentalists from the Middle East regularly meet to exchange logistics and tradecraft. For this reason, intelligence agencies fear that in the future al Quaeda could "outsource" some of its missions to white supremacist terrorist organizations within the United States effectively making it the Haliburton of the terrorist world.
AMERICAN TERRORISTS
Anyone who views terrorism as the bi-product of a "Clash of Civilizations" or "Us vs. Them" scenario should read Stern's first chapter very carefully. Here, Stern describes a radical, white, Christian terrorist organization in the United States that planned in 1986 to poison urban water supplies to bring about The Apocalypse. More disturbing is the fact that despite their radically different ideologies, foreign and American terrorist groups largely sympathize with each other. Terrorists whom Stern interviewed from both camps expressed sympathy with the goals and actions of their counterparts in America or the Middle East.
Stern's book leaves us with challenging questions and conclusions about terrorism. Since terrorists often depart from their original motives until they are acting out of mere greed and excitement, it is clearly impossible to defeat them with a strategy of appeasement. At the same time, we must recognize that as long as people feel humiliated, defeated, or excluded from progress and development terrorist organizations will have a never-ending supply of willing recruits. Stern provides us with an excellent starting point for effectively combating terrorism. But it is up to us to elect leaders who are competent and capable of performing this task instead of merely talking about it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Extremely important information presented in a dry manner
Comment: In the interest of not repeating what other reviewers have already pointed out, I want to focus on two specific points about Stern's extremely important book.
Stern has made a huge contribution with this book by providing insight into what makes terrorists tick. It is wonderfully devoid of the gung ho jingoistic machismo we so often see in today's political debate. While Stern's observations might not win votes, it is psychologically and sociologically logical and coherent. If only the policitians would heed the information Stern has presented we might actually defeat terrorism in the long term.
Unfortunately, how Stern has presented her information is rather dry to say the least. A quick glance confirms her background at Harvard University.
"In this chapter I will explain . . . " is the classic academic style of a first sentence of a chapter. This might be fine for a thesis paper, it is not for a book for public consumption. This severely detracts from the possible larger reading audience Stern could have had had she used a more interesting approach.
I'd rather listen to material like this than read it, so I recommend the audio version over the original text. It's abridged and it suffers from Stern's dry reading style, but it is easier to digest overall.
The other issue which another reviewer raised was whether or not Stern actually spoke to terrorists given how misognystic Islamic extremists can be. The idea is that such people would not talk to a woman.
As someone who has also travelled to the Middle East, including Iraq in 1998 when I met many Iraqi soldiers, I have observed many Muslims, good and bad, separate in social settings how they behave towards a Muslim Arab woman versus how they might behave towards a liberal white woman born in the U.S. While they won't tolerate the behavior of the former, they will the latter.
Obviously, this is not to suggest that all Arabs and Muslims are alike or that what I observed is also symptomatic of terrorists. But it does suggest that some people with strong religious beliefs do indeed have a surprising level of cultural tolerance in certain circumstances.
It's impossible to prove either way if Stern actually spoke with terrorists. Could a man prove beyond a doubt that he had? Just as likely he could not. Thus, I would not so easily dismiss Stern's experiences and insight just because she is a woman. There's ample evidence here to show that Stern knows exactly what she's talking about.
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Title: The Ultimate Terrorists by Jessica Stern ISBN: 0674003942 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: 15 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Terror in the Mind of God : The Global Rise of Religious Violence by Mark Juergensmeyer ISBN: 0520240111 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind by Walter Reich, Walter Laqueur ISBN: 0943875897 Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Pr Pub. Date: December, 1998 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll ISBN: 1594200076 Publisher: The Penguin Press Pub. Date: 23 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror by Bernard Lewis ISBN: 0679642811 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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