March 06, 2008
Studying Terrorism
As the presidential race heats up, terrorism will undoubtedly be flapped in front of us like a locker room towel. All of us here at Dakota thought It would be a good idea to understand the facts about these guys, rather than continue to rely on Bush, Cheney and McCain's personal projections about their own inner demons onto the enemy. We are already all too familiar with those.
So, as you might imagine, we were delighted to discover that Dr. Marc Sageman, M.D., Ph.D.( political sociology) former CIA officer, psychiatrist, flight surgeon and author of Leaderless Jihad: Terro Networks in the Twenty-First Century and Understanding Terrorist Networks has actually done extensive research on terrorist, which deserves to be more widely disseminated.
Sageman debunks an number of myths including the following: terrorism comes from poverty, .terrorists are naïve young men, madrassahs brainwash young Muslims into becoming terrorists, Islam radicalized young Muslims into becoming terrorists and exported violence to the West from their home countries, Al-Qaida terrorists are poorly educated, joining al-Qaida out of ignorance and Al-Qaida suicide terrorists are single males, without any family responsibility, Al-Qaida terrorists join their organization out of desperation, because they don't have any marketable occupational skills, and more, which you will have to read for yourself..
Or you can just sit back and watch Marc Sageman on video. He's quite entertaining, considering the subject.
Photo note: A gremlin cast in stone. Who do you think he most resembles?
Posted by Dakota at March 6, 2008 09:33 AM