Uncertainty: What motivates a terrorist?
Aug. 12th, 2007 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
openspace4lifeThe standard progressive story is that terrorists are desperate people who live under oppressive regimes with starkly limited economic opportunities and, unable to strike at their own governments, are pushed instead by unscrupulous leaders to blame the West for their problems. The standard conservative riposte is that many terrorists have middle-class living standards, so why would they be desperate? (Yet both sides basically agree that more democracy would help.)
Still, what if the conservatives have a point? After all, it's not only the terrorists who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for a cause. Maybe they have core beliefs in the superiority of Islam every bit as strong as a good American soldier's belief in the superiority of democracy.* Or, if you don't like the comparison of "cowardly" suicide bombers to our brave servicemen and women, we can consider what terrorists actually are: covert operatives, agents battling in the shadows to try to reshape the world, somewhat as the CIA has done by inciting revolutions and toppling governments.
Of course, it's easy to argue that a typical American soldier or CIA operative doesn't expect to die in the line of duty, though s/he may be prepared to do so (and if religious, s/he probably believes that s/he will go to Heaven in that event). So maybe suicide bombers really are just desperate, for whatever reason--but there are other kinds of terrorists. There are those who merely plan the operations, and those who launch missiles or plant roadside bombs.
So in the shadow war that we hope is being won by our counterterrorism agents around the globe, both sides have similar outlooks--it's just that we view our ideology, with some justification, as better than theirs. They think the world would be better off united under Islam; we believe democracy is best for everyone, because it serves as a meta-ideology, a framework that allows each of us to choose what kind of beliefs we want to follow.
* During a get-out-the-vote drive, I once talked on the phone with a veteran who told me that he was only "fighting for the guy next to me." But my guess is that he was drafted, and of course we don't have any draftees at the moment (knock on wood). And while you could turn the argument around and claim that most of our current soldiers are desperate poor people too, could the same be said of the highly educated covert operatives who "volunteered" for the CIA?
Still, what if the conservatives have a point? After all, it's not only the terrorists who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for a cause. Maybe they have core beliefs in the superiority of Islam every bit as strong as a good American soldier's belief in the superiority of democracy.* Or, if you don't like the comparison of "cowardly" suicide bombers to our brave servicemen and women, we can consider what terrorists actually are: covert operatives, agents battling in the shadows to try to reshape the world, somewhat as the CIA has done by inciting revolutions and toppling governments.
Of course, it's easy to argue that a typical American soldier or CIA operative doesn't expect to die in the line of duty, though s/he may be prepared to do so (and if religious, s/he probably believes that s/he will go to Heaven in that event). So maybe suicide bombers really are just desperate, for whatever reason--but there are other kinds of terrorists. There are those who merely plan the operations, and those who launch missiles or plant roadside bombs.
So in the shadow war that we hope is being won by our counterterrorism agents around the globe, both sides have similar outlooks--it's just that we view our ideology, with some justification, as better than theirs. They think the world would be better off united under Islam; we believe democracy is best for everyone, because it serves as a meta-ideology, a framework that allows each of us to choose what kind of beliefs we want to follow.
* During a get-out-the-vote drive, I once talked on the phone with a veteran who told me that he was only "fighting for the guy next to me." But my guess is that he was drafted, and of course we don't have any draftees at the moment (knock on wood). And while you could turn the argument around and claim that most of our current soldiers are desperate poor people too, could the same be said of the highly educated covert operatives who "volunteered" for the CIA?
