Mishandling suicide terrorism

Washington Quarterly

Volumn 27, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 67-90

  Atran, Scott ^a,b  

^a CNRS   (France)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 12144271983     PISSN: 0163660X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/016366004323090269     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. Robert Pape, "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," American Political Science Review 97 (August 2003): 343-361.
2. Audrey Kurth Cronin, "Terrorists and Suicide Attacks," CRS Report for Congress, RL32058, August 28, 2003, p. 12, www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL32058.pdf (accessed April 8, 2004).
3. See Scott Atran, "Individual Factors in Suicide Terrorism," Science, April 2, 2004, pp. 47-49, www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/304/5667/47/DC1/1 (accessed April 8, 2004) (supplementary online materials) (hereinafter Atran supplementary online materials).
4. Scott Atran, "A Leaner, Meaner Jihad," New York Times, March 16, 2004, p. A25.
5. Christopher Langton, ed., The Military Balance 2003-2004 (London: Oxford University Press, 2003).
6. Dave Moniz and Tom Squitieri, "Defense Memo: A Grim Outlook," USA Today, October 22, 2003, p. 1.
7. Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, "Changing Minds, Winning Peace: A New Strategic Direction for U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab & Muslim World," October 1, 2003, www.state.gov/documents/organization/24882.pdf (accessed April 8, 2004).
8. Christopher Marquis, "U.S. Image Abroad Will Take Years to Repair, Official Says," New York Times, February 5, 2004, p. A5.
9. Christopher Lee, "Most Say They Are Less Safe Since 9/11," Washington Post, April 1, 2004, p. A3.
10. Fazlur Rahman Khalil, interview, 60 Minutes II, CBS, October 15, 2000.
11. Rahul Behdi, "India 'Will Go to War After the Monsoon,'" News Telegraph, May 21, 2002, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/05/21/wkash21.xml (accessed April 6, 2004);
12. Rory McCarthy, "Dangerous Game of State-Sponsored Terrorism That Threatens Nuclear Conflict," Guardian, May 25, 2002.
13. Middle East Resource Exchange Database (MERED), August 14, 2003, www.mered.org/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=132&FORUM_ID=1&CAT_ID= 1&Forum_Title=News&Topic_Title=Data+Shows+Suicide+Bombers+ Young%2C+Well+Educated (accessed April 6, 2004). The MERED data have been updated through 2003. The breakdown of successful attacks is Hamas - 51, Palestinian Islamic Jihad - 27, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - 31, other Fatah groups - 7, Popular/Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine - 3, unknown - 10.
14. David Sanger, "President Says Military Phase in Iraq Has Ended," New York Times, May 2, 2003.
15. Walter Pincus and Dana Priest, "Spy Agencies' Optimism on Al Qaeda Is Growing; Lack of Attacks Thought to Show Group Is Nearly Crippled," Washington Post, May 6, 2003, p. A16.
16. Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, "President Bush, Ambassador Bremer Discuss Progress in Iraq," October 27, 2003, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031027-1.html (accessed April 8, 2004).
17. Neil MacFarquhar, "Arab World of Two Minds About U.S. Involvement in Iraq," New York Times, October 29, 2003, p. A10.
18. U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), "Combating Terrorism: Interagency Framework and Agency Programs to Address the Overseas Threat," GAO-03-165, May 23, 2003, p. 4, www.gao.gov/new.items/d03165.pdf (accessed April 8, 2004).
19. See "What After the Capture of Saddam," December 16, 2003, www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=mYDRef (accessed April 8, 2004).
20. National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, February 2003, http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/strategy/ (accessed April 6, 2004).
21. Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, "Address to a Joint Session of Congress and to the American People," September 20, 2001, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html (accessed April 8, 2004);
22. "Bush: Al Qaeda Types' Committing Terror in Iraq," Fox News, August 22, 2003.
23. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, "Views of a Changing World," June 2003, http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=185 (accessed April 8, 2004).
24. Mark Tessler, "Do Islamic Orientations Influence Attitudes Toward Democracy in the Arab World: Evidence from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Algeria," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 2 (spring 2002): 229-249;
25. Mark Tessler and Dan Corstange, "How Should Americans Understand Arab and Muslim Political Attitudes: Combating Stereotypes with Public Opinion Data from the Middle East," Journal of Social Affairs 19 (winter 2002).
26. Khalil Shikaki, "Palestinians Divided," Foreign Affairs 81, no. 1 (January/February 2002);
27. Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, "Public Opinion Poll No. 9," October 7-14, 2003, www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2003/p9a.html (accessed April 8, 2004).
28. 1997 DSB Summer Study Task Force, "DSB Force Protection Panel Report to DSB," December 1997, p. 8, www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/trans2.pdf (accessed April 6, 2004).
29. Colum Lynch, "Volunteers Swell a Reviving Qaeda, UN Warns," International Herald Tribune, December 19, 2002, p. 3.
30. Gary Becker, "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," Political Economy 76 (1968): 169-217.
31. Alan Krueger and Jitka Malecková, "Seeking the Roots of Terror," Chronicle of Higher Education, June 6, 2003, http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i39/39b01001.htm (accessed April 6, 2004).
32. Alan Krueger, "Poverty Doesn't Create Terrorists," New York Times, May 29, 2003.
33. Neil J. Smelser and Faith Mitchell, eds., Discouraging Terrorism: Some Implications of 9/11 (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2002), p. 2, www.nap.edu/books/0309085306/html/R1.html (accessed April 8, 2004).
34. Michelle Ciarrocca and William D. Hartung, "Increases in Military Spending and Security Assistance Since 9/11/01," October 4, 2002, www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/news/SpendingDOD911.html (accessed April 8, 2004).
35. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch regularly document "horrific" and "massive" human rights abuses occurring in countries that receive the most U.S. aid in absolute terms (Israel, Egypt, Colombia, Pakistan) and the greatest relative increase in aid (Central Asian republics, Georgia, Turkey). For details, see Atran supplementary online materials.
36. World Markets Research Centre, "Global Terrorism Index 2003/4," August 18, 2003. Colombia, Israel, and Pakistan top the list of places at risk for terrorist attack. Iraq, not previously a major risk, has also leapt to the forefront.
37. George Carpenter and Robert K. Pelant, "Hope Is an Answer to Terror," interview with Charlene Porter, in September 11 One Year Later, September 2002, p. 14, (accessed April 8, 2004).
38. See "The Link Between Poverty and Terrorism," statement by Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Baroness Symons, House of Lords, London, February 27, 2002.
39. Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, "President Outlines U.S. Plan to Help World's Poor," March 22, 2002, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020322-1.html (accessed April 8, 2004).
40. See Janet J. Jai, "Getting at the Roots of Terrorism," Christian Science Monitor, December 10, 2001, p. 7 (comments by Nobel Peace Prize laureates).
41. Scott Atran, "Genesis of Suicide Terrorism," Science, March 7, 2003, pp. 1534-1539.
42. Wesley Clark, address to Veterans of Foreign Wars, Nashua, N.H., December 20, 2003.
43. David Von Drehle, "Debate Over Iraq Focuses on Outcome," Washington Post, October 7, 2002, p. A1.
44. Richard Cheney, interview by Brit Hume, Fox News, March 17, 2004.
45. Rex A. Hudson, "The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?" September 1999, p. 40, www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/Soc_Psych_of_Terrorism.pdf (accessed April 8, 2004).
46. Scott Atran, "Who Wants to Be a Martyr," New York Times, May 5, 2003, p. A23.
47. Ministry of Home Affairs, Republic of Singapore, "White Paper - The Jemaah Islamiyah Arrests and the Threat of Terrorism," January 7, 2003, www2.mha.gov.sg/mha/detailed.jsp?artid=667&type=4& root=0&parent=0&cat=0&mode=arc (accessed April 8, 2004).
48. Raphael Ezekiel, The Racist Mind: Portraits of American Neo-Nazis and Klansmen (New York: Viking, 1995).
49. Al-Ahram Al-Arabi (Cairo), February 3, 2001.
50. Richard Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why (New York: Free Press, 2003).
51. Jeremy Weinstein, "Resources and the Information Problem in Rebel Recruitment," November 2003, www.armedgroups.org/_media/Weinstein_paper.pdf (accessed April 9, 2004).
52. Brian Barber, Heart and Stones: Palestinian Youth from the Intifada (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2003).
53. Mia Bloom, "Devising a Theory of Suicide Terror," in Dying to Kill: The Global Phenomenon of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, forthcoming). See Al Aqsa' Martyrs Brigades communiqué, January 10, 2003;
54. "Communiqués of the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, March 15-April 25, 2002," www.tao.ca/~solidarity/texts/palestine/PFLPcommuniques.html (accessed April 6, 2004);
55. cf. "Military Communiqué - Qassam Brigades," August 9, 2001, www.intellnet.org/resources/hamas_communiques/hamas/comm_text/2001 /9_aug_01.htm (accessed April 8, 2004).
56. David Rhode and C. J. Chivers, "Qaeda's Grocery Lists and Manuals of Killing," New York Times, March 17, 2002, p. A1.
57. Studies of people who become torturers for their governments demonstrate the eventual power of such blind obedience. See Mika Haritos-Fatouros, "The Official Torturer: A Learning Model for Obedience to the Authority of Violence," Journal of Applied Social Psychology 18 (1988): 1107-1120.
58. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Viking Press, 1970).
59. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority (New York: Harper & Row, 1974).
60. Basel Saleh, "Economic Conditions and Resistance to Occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: There Is a Causal Connection," paper presented to the Graduate Student forum, Kansas State University, April 4, 2003.
61. Atran, "Who Wants to Be a Martyr."
62. Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (New York: HarperCollins, 2003).
63. Hill, October 29, 2003.
64. Timothy Spangler, interview, BBC News, January 21, 2003.
65. Pew Research Center, "Views of a Changing World."
66. Scott Atran, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
67. Robert Frank, Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions (New York: W.W. Norton, 1988).
68. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, "A Year After Iraq War: Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, Muslim Anger Persists," March 16, 2004, http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206 (accessed April 9, 2004).
69. GAO, "Combating Terrorism."
70. National Security Strategy of the United States, September 2003, www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html (accessed April 9, 2004) (introduction by President George W. Bush).
71. Robert McNamara, "In Retrospect - The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam," address to the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, April 25, 1995, www.ksg.harvard.edu/ifactory/ksgpress/www/ksg_news/transcripts/ mcnamara.htm (accessed April 9, 2004).
72. Joseph S. Nye Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004).