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Radicalization and Terrorism

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DWill

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Re: Radicalization and Terrorism

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ant wrote:What ISIS ideology offers is cognitive closure for a recruit that is psychologically ripe due to a cognitive opening:

Cognitive opening: a strong desire to achieve an identity that promises an escape from some socio economic opression; the righting of a personal or social wrong; and the achievement of instant status and significance.

Cognitive closure: the end of some great personal/social angst, or the fulfillment of an ideological dream. Could be a combination of all.
As you've said, the reasons for radicalization are complex. not even all covered by the definition above. People in England are scratching their heads over the three girls who absconded to Syria, probably, to join ISIS. They had it all going for them and appeared not to have even dabbled in political grievance.
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DWill

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Re: Radicalization and Terrorism

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I just read an article in The Atlantic that has generated some buzz. It's "What ISIS Really Wants," by Graeme Wood. A bit lengthy, but it's worth reading for an analysis that doesn't favor any standard political view. Regarding the question of why terrorist organizations--or countries--gather recruits, it offers a simple explanation: whenever a great cause presents itself, many people with an affiliation will find the draw irresistible. These people will naturally come from all walks of life and up and down the socioeconomic scale. It was no different for the U.S. in WW II. We haven't had a war that inspired people to that degree since then, though.

Wood tells us that the establishment of the caliphate in Syria and Iraq is a call of duty for Muslims who want to practice the original religion of Muhammed. They must come, for the caliphate is the first step to the eventual apocalyptic battle where the infidels are forever destroyed. Along the way, there are Koran-prescribed duties such as slavery and crucifixion that no Muslim resident of a caliphate has an option not to exercise.

One main point from Wood: ISIS is definitely Islamic. It is not the Islam that the majority of Muslims believe should exist in 2015, but the caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, backs up his new state with learned theology from the Koran and other scriptures of Islam.
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Re: Radicalization and Terrorism

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I read the Atlantic article.
It's almost bone-chilling.
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Re: Radicalization and Terrorism

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Four waves of terrorism:

"the 1880s, an initial "Anarchist Wave"(6) appeared which continued for some 40 years. Its successor, the "Anti-Colonial Wave" began in the 1920s, and by the 1960s had largely disappeared. The late 1960s witnessed the birth of the "New Left Wave," which dissipated largely in the 90s leaving a few groups still active in Sri Lanka, Spain, France, Peru, and Columbia. The fourth or "Religious Wave" began in 1979, and, if it follows the pattern of its predecessors, it still has twenty to twenty-five years to run."


http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0801/terror.htm

it's interesting to think about what the 5th wave might be.
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Re: Radicalization and Terrorism

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Re: Radicalization and Terrorism

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While socio-economic conditions as well as the harsh realities of war certainly works to radicalize many Muslims, I think the root cause of the radicalization is sexual repression. Men in the Muslim societies in places as the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Indonesia are SO sexually repressed that they can be manipulated into doing just about anything with the promise of having their sexual frustrations sated.

When I was serving in South Asia and the Middle East in the 1980s, I saw it for myself. This was before the internet, of course, and you could buy just about anything over there with a few "fuck books". One guy got himself a band new stereo which he had shipped home. The price was four fuck books. So a bunch of guys on my ship then ran off to town with fuck books (no shortage of fuck books on a Navy ship) and it got so bad that the police were out cracking down. The problem in Muslim societies is that the cops look like anyone else so you have to be VERY careful.

Now I never offered anyone porn mags but once I was negotiating for a really nice boom box (this was the 80s, after all) from this appliance dealer and he offered it to me for very cheap if I threw a fuck book into the deal. I paid full price.

We had to toss our garbage down to a barge they had anchored next to the ship and they'd empty it once a day. Actually, every time we tossed a bag of garbage onto the barge, guys down there would rip into it like starving wolves looking for fuck books. Sometimes we'd even put some fuck books into the bags to watch their reaction. They'd gibber and squeal weirdly if they found one.

Some years later, I was a civilian again and I met a guy at the party thrown by a co-worker who was visiting from Egypt. He had been living there for a number of years. I started talking to him about my own experiences in that area of the world and told him about how they would give you anything in exchange for porno mags and his response summed it up beautifully, perfectly: "They have the sexual maturity of a six-year-old." He didn't say it to be mean, it's a fact. That is exactly how they act. But if you ever go over there, you see why--men and women are kept segregated until they are ready to be married and most of those marriages were long ago arranged by their parents. Otherwise, you cannot talk to women over there. Guys on my ship got in trouble for trying to talk to the women even when it was a perfectly innocent thing. No talking to the women--PERIOD!!! That's not just the American men--any men--any and ALL. Consequently, you see quite a bit of homosexuality over there even though Islam officially frowns on it. I remember visiting the zoo in Karachi, Pakistan (we were the biggest attraction there, a huge group of people crowded around us and just looked at us and when we moved onto the next attraction, they moved with us) and I saw people sitting in the grass and there was a couple sitting under a tree cuddling and sort of kissing. It was the most affection I had ever seen displayed in the open in any Muslim country I visited. As I got closer to them, I realized the "girl" had a 5 o'clock shadow and was clearly a man. Fooled me from a distance.

Imagine going into ABC Warehouse and offering the salesman 3 porno mags for a brand new washing machine. Imagine trying to get American men to blow themselves up on the promise that they will have access to women in heaven. War and socio-economic factors do not account for that behavior. Imagine a female news reporter on an American street corner being sexually assaulted by dozens of men out of their minds with a lust they almost never get to assuage in any other way. Only sexual repression accounts for it.

A sexually repressed man is a man full of rage. He hates anyone he perceives as getting more than him--which is just about everybody. He is frustrated, angry, bitter and wanting to destroy something, anything. THESE are the men that make the greatest recruits to the Islamic State. THESE are the men who can commit any atrocity for the promise of 72 virgins in heaven. The truth is, they'd commit the same atrocity with promise of a couple of decent fuck books but, of course, their handlers know it's better to make them wait for pussy after they die. If they find any form of satisfaction prior to dying, their rage might subside too much to make them useful soldiers of IS or al-Qaida or any number of these sexual-repression cults.

You, as a big name cleric, can convince these men that the cause of their rage and frustration is the West quite easily. They already hate the West not just because of the wars and economic sanctions but because they see the Western man as this guy who gets all the pussy he wants, who can look at all the fuck books he can buy at the corner store. The Western man is the guy who can do the stuff that the hapless Muslim man can only dream of in his most forbidden desires and then hate himself for it and blame the West for his shortcoming. Yet the Muslim man has to convince himself that Islamic society and Sharia law is far better than anything in the West and so his anger and frustration MUST be the fault of the West. So when he has a Western man (or other sexually liberal nations as Japan) on his knees at his feet, he feels no pity but only a rage--he wants to smash his face, knock his brains out, make him--someone--pay for everything he has been denied all his life.

Now when I was in these countries, I met some nice people and I wanted to like them. I wanted to like everyone I met but I knew that what I saw was a facade. There is a seething hatred underneath it all that spills out at odd times--some of it justified but much of it completely irrational.

To break the hold of Islamic extremism requires easing the sexual repression of the Muslim male and I am not sure how to go about doing that. It would require a restructuring of their society that I don't see happening any time soon. But there is some hope. Some places I visited seemed to be more liberated--Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar--and these could lead the way. But see this as an uphill battle and one that could EASILY end up having the opposite outcome. Any of these countries could wake up and find the yoke of sharia law around their necks at any time.
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Re: Radicalization and Terrorism

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Interesting, Roy.

Thanks for sharing that.
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Re: Radicalization and Terrorism

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and i think to myself.... what a wonderful world :-D

imagine porn publishers saving the world with a few well placed airdrops.

a fantastic insight tho DB, thanks.
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Re: Radicalization and Terrorism

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DWill

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Re: Radicalization and Terrorism

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Yes, very interesting first-hand perspective. It might not explain as well the attraction of radicalism to Muslims living outside the Middle East.
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