Standard counterterrorism responses, such as improving intelligence sharing and law enforcement cooperation, are indispensable but insufficient. Likewise, military force is sometimes required, but it cannot be the primary response. So what to do?
One promising new approach builds on the parallels often drawn between terrorism and a mutating virus or metastasizing cancer. Although Islamist militancy is clearly not a disease in the clinical sense, it does exhibit qualities of a social contagion; there is something undeniably appealing or "infectious" to many about the ideas and beliefs that motivate terrorists and their many supporters. Analyzing the terrorist threat with an epidemiological framework would give focus and direction to our effort in three areas:
First, it would encourage us to ask the right questions. What is the nature of the infectious agent, in this case the ideology? Which transmission vectors -- for example, mosques, madrassas, prisons, the Internet, satellite TV -- spread the ideology most effectively? Who seems to be most vulnerable to its appeal? Why are most Muslims immune? Nearly four years after Sept. 11, we still have only rudimentary answers.
There is a lot to commend about this idea.
We need to understand how the terrorists operate and sustain themselves. Al Qaeda is not like any enemy we have ever faced and therefore our national responses will be unlike any we have ever given. While Al Qaeda is obviously capable of great violence, it may be likened to a virus that has already infected the world's systems of commerce, travel, finances, politics and communications. Our countermeasures must be specific to those environments. We should consider that we are healing the world of terrorism rather than simply destroying terrorism, lest our actions perversely sustain the environment in which viral terrorism reproduces and flourishes. This means that while current members of terrorist networks must be brought to justice -- or justice brought to them, as President Bush put it -- we need to find ways to make Al Qaeda's recruitment of replacements unsuccessful. But this will be a very long process.
However, the idea of terrorism as a virus wasn't original with me, either. I first read it in an essay by John Paul Lederach, a pacifist who is a Mennonite professor at Eastern Mennonite University. Shortly after the attacks of 9/11/01, he wrote, "The Challenge of Terror."
We need a new metaphor, and though I generally do not like medical metaphors to describe conflict, the image of a virus comes to mind because of its ability to enter unperceived, flow with a system, and harm it from within. This is the genius of people like Osama Ben Laden. He understood the power of a free and open system, and has used it to his benefit. The enemy is not located in a territory. It has entered our system. And you do not fight this kind of enemy by shooting at it. You respond by strengthening the capacity of the system to prevent the virus and strengthen its immunity. It is an ironic fact that our greatest threat is not in Afghanistan, but in our own backyard.
There was and still is much to commend in Lederach's essay, but he missed the boat in some places as well. However, a lot of us did, and I still admire Lederach's insights and life's work.
Back to the two WaPo authors. They say that thinking of Islamist terrorism as a virus offers these advantages:First, it would encourage us to ask the right questions. What is the nature of the infectious agent, in this case the ideology? Which transmission vectors -- for example, mosques, madrassas, prisons, the Internet, satellite TV -- spread the ideology most effectively? Who seems to be most vulnerable to its appeal? Why are most Muslims immune? Nearly four years after Sept. 11, we still have only rudimentary answers.
Second, an epidemiological approach would help us view Islamist militancy as a dynamic, multifaceted phenomenon. Just as diseases do not emerge in a vacuum but evolve as a result of complex interactions between pathogens, people and their environment, so it is with Islamist militancy. Too often, however, we focus on the individual parts of the problem and miss the evolving big picture.
Third, it would encourage us to devise a comprehensive, long-term strategic approach to countering the threat. Public health officials long ago recognized that epidemics can be rolled back only with a systematically planned, multi-pronged international effort. The same applies to Islamist militancy; no silver bullet exists and no country can meet the challenge alone.
A global counterterrorism campaign inspired by classic counter-epidemic measures would simultaneously seek to contain the spread of Islamist militancy, protect those who are most susceptible and remedy the key environmental factors that foster it.
Much food for thought, although there remain many holes to be filled in.
Are Jihadis similar to the Anarchists of the 19th and early 20th century?
The concept of treating ideology like a virus, to understand how it mutates into something other than desired, is an excellant metaphor for understanding. In my research, before publishing Bernie Minihan's Dilemma, it seemed clear that there were two things I had to understand:
1- Why couldn't the US Government do the kind of intelligence work that put us on the offensive, rather than the defensive on terrorism?
2- Why would someone, living in a community for many years, and participating in its events and culture, suddenly go into a closet, take out a vest with explosives, and board a bus to blow up his/her neighbors?
The answer to the first seems to be what you suggest above--the US Government has no idea how to understand or anticipate the Arab mind. it has not been willing to acknowledge that terrorists think asynchronously, and not necessarily in step with conventional intelligence or military thought. Instead, their thought process is a deeper one that involves the effect of the consequences of the act as much as the execution of the act itself. Until we understand the key--the intent of action--we will not understand how to prevent the result.
The answer to the second question is much more difficult. That answer, I believe, involves understanding the psyche of loyalty to ones heritage. Islam draw people much closer together, both as a religion, and as a culture, than most other religions. Even from a nationalistic point of view, there is no clearcut companion to Islam as a mental model. Every person of Italian extraction does not join the Mafia, or wait in the wings for a calling. If one came out of the blue, the average person would laugh and hang up.
Yet, some of those that have been involved in recent tragedies were not known criminals; they were not on terrorist lists; and they had lived in their communities for many years--long before bin Laden was active. They answered a call and did their duty, as they saw it.
There are only two possibilities here. The first is that some group, existing for many years has put moles into many countries for long periods, and found a way to keep them attuned to an eventual call. The second would be another answer--one that had to involve psychological ties still unbroken. Either way, we are talking about a vast organization that can keep records, and contacts well, without raising antennas in the intelligence community.
To take the analogy a little further, a virus can often infect cells, but not perform well, because of the cell's own surveliance mechanisms. This is the most effective way of surviving a virus attack. Acyclovir is a drug that reduces virus replication, so that the cells on mechanisms can take over (to eliminate virus within the cell, or eliminate infected cells. Societies can boost survellance mechanisms, and reduce the avalability of infectable hosts through training, but I doubt that this approach will be very effective.
Secondly, some hosts elaborate slilghtly modified target proteins, so that the host cells are not infectable. This is appro pro to the training issue, but on a biological level it typically takes several generations to produce a non-infectable population. The infectable population always remains, unless the non-infectable population has a major improvement in survival potential ( i.e. coupled to huge economic improvements?)
Finally, and most scary, oncogenic viruses infect the cell and integrate their DNA into the host cell DNA. The virus program is then activated by a selective event. Under standing how to stop these viruses (HIV and carcenogenic viruses)will require massive investment in detailed studies. think about HIV virus, for instance.
It would be more accurate, and possible more productive to think about Islamofascist terrorism as a meme.
You cannot possibly hold this view and support the current administrations foreign policy/Iraq war simultaneously. They are completely incompatible.
So which is it? "Understand" terrorists and approach the cure with a "global counterterrorism campaign" (the position you advocate here) or "confront the threat aggressively and unilaterally" with a heavy dependence on "deterrence", without worrying so much about etiology (The current US foreign policy)?
How frustrating it is to have to pretend these are two intellectually valid positions that even merit a debate. How sad it is that we are being governed by those who show absolutely no inclination or desire to look at things in more than just the simplest and most politically expedient ways.
All of your mental gear grinding is occurring in a vacuum as long as the same bunch of rank idiots remain in power.
I personally prefer the surgical approach of removal of infectious regimes in oil laden countries. In the end I think it saves lives.
Lee Harris voiced a similar view in 2002 in "Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology."
Personally I view al Qaeda as more of a symptom than the actual disease. They're just another in a long line of different rejectionist movements which arise as reactions against the spread of the open society.
This post DEMANDS the Agent Smith response:
"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure."
T J Madison's response illustrates the Utopian problem in the West. Basically, from Plato on there have been many in the West enraged that people live ordinary lives on their own as they see fit, and don't respond to one central "Eastern" style authority such as the Persian Emperor, or Alexander, or some other Philosopher King. This dream was present on the Right (Hilter, Mussolini, Nietzche,
Franco), religious isolationists (Shakers, Joeseph Smith), the Left (Trotsky, Stalin, Mao) all seeking to remake society to find some harmonious "balance" that would usher in a static Utopia.
I believe the Virus metaphor is broken as well as the other fellow. What's notable is how many people knew of the 9/11 and 7/7 and 7/21 suicide attackers, and kept silent. Shehhi's wife knew, the 7/7 bombers had told cousins, friends, various other people of their general plans. No one picked up the phone and called authorities saying "this person plans a terrorist attack."
A very few set of Muslims oppose terror, most silently approve as in the 1920's response to the Klan and Lynching (in which people used lynching as "public entertainment.") There were disgusting pictures showing people taking "mememtos" of lynched people, even including little children.
How was this broken? First by brute force. The National Guard FORCED integration at public schools. George Wallace and Orville Faubus were pulled out of the schoolhouse doors by armed soldiers. The FBI however reluctantly and ineptly pursued the Klan. Secondarily the Media made klansmen and racists ugly, stupid, evil, and losers. But this alone did not defeat them. Only brute force coupled with a media effort worked.
If we are thinking about Salafist terror, we should I would argue use the Klan as a model. Where of course that breaks down is that we have very little public support for an anti-Terror effort from the Media and other opinion shapers. In anti-Terror efforts this is not the Sixties where the Klan was fought but the 1920's where it was overtly tolerated.
I agree that the Islamic mind is unfathomable, as much so as the Japanese before WWII. The Japanese believed that through their kinship with the divine emperor they were superior to other peoples and any moral code other than what he promulgated. The unspeakable cruelties they perpetrated could be shrugged off because they were inflicted on lesser beings who had no more right to pity than pigs. The Muslims also believe that infidels can be slaughtered without qualm or compunction.
I thought most of us already saw it these terms (re: as memes and structural issues)...
Why can't we accept that our enemy honestly believes what it says? that the enemy is
a) strongly motivated by real religious zeal
b) feels democracy and their religion is incompatible
c) feels the spread of democracy is an assault on their religion
d) somewhat justly feels that "western" support for the dictators is what allows them to survive and keep their people weak
e) thus feels that islam is under attack from the west, instead of the other way around
e) feels that most sunni religious leaders made enough fatwas to make it a religious obligation to defend islam against the west by any means necessary
are we so incapable of seeing a religious war that we need virus / gangster / international corporation metaphors to explain what we see in front of our eyes?
Why can't we accept that our enemy honestly believes what it says?
We don't believe our enemy because their actions prove that they are lying.
If they're so "persecuted" by the West, why are they beheading monks in Thailand? Why are they slaughtering Hindus in India? Why are they spending millions to create tribal strife and terror in Africa? Why are they enlaving and murdering blacks for the crime of being black?
Via USA Today:We don't believe them because their laws, their history and every scrap of information that's been written about them indicate that they're motivated by a supremacist political ideology that promotes slavery and genocide. This is no secret, it's been in the news for years and it's been a constant factor in their societies for centuries. The only thing that's changed is that they're wealthier.
If they're a virus, money is feeding them.
Hm - Odd that Jinnderella hasn't turned up.
Public health officials long ago recognized that epidemics can be rolled back only with a systematically planned, multi-pronged international effort.
Not to be reflexively anti-internationalist, but this is completely bogus. Pre-vaccine (and I don't think there's a really good memetic vaccine for religious extremism - or at least there won't be until there's a cheap gene therapy to raise IQ - but that's an entirely different rant), epidemics have historically been rolled back through better public sanitation (dysentry, cholera), quarantine (smallpox, polio) and letting the virus burn itself out (ebola, 1918 influenza, etc.). These are all local responses.
To (perhaps over)extend the metaphor, the memetic equivalents might be:
Sanitation: better public education about the dangers of religious extremism, to help people resist it's pull. This is sorely lacking in the places most susceptible to it, IMO, where there is no public education other than the extremist madrassas or the Wahabbist saturated schools. A friend of mine from Karachi, Pakistan, told me a story about how in his country, (as here in the US), often the most stridently religious individuals are considered the most pious. Religiously mellow people are unlikely to pick ip a megaphone and scream about the importance of moderate religiosity, right? But religious violence should be easy to denounce, especially WITHIN the house of Peace (dar-al-Islam). The Salafists' muslim body count is far higher than their kufir kills - denouncing this should be a no brainer, even from within the paradigm of an anti-western Muslim. In the West, the lack of real understanding of the threat posed by Salafist terror has led to some of the Left making common cause with wildly anti-Liberal causes, in the name of anti-imperialism (e.g., Moore's "freedom fighters", and their vile snuff films of decapitated civilians). Further, we still send aid to governments which generate wildly anti-Western propaganda through their state controlled media (Egypt, I'm looking at you). This is a real failure of priorities, both within the West and the Umma.
Quarantine: This is a real thorny problem, from the point of view of the US remaining true to it's Constitution/Bill of Rights - it isn't a suicide pact, sure. Religious extremists should be prevented from spreading their sickness, right? But should that include people like Pat Roberts, if they call for, the assassination of, say, the President of Venezuela, or be only applied against Muslims as part of a state sanctioned PR catastrophe? What is the legal status of incarcerated non-state anti-Western fighters, and when is it safe to release them? These issues are very problematic from a constitutional conservative/civil libertarian pov.
Viral burn out: Once everyone infected dies, so does the epidemic. Some people think that Islam is the problem, but I doubt they've met many Muslims. The problem in the WoT is Islamic extremism, and the host environment (Arabism, failed socialism, rampant corruption, Wahabbist Salafism) in which it arises. That's a mighty tough swamp to drain. Say what you will about the neocons, they sure do like a challenge!
>>The Japanese believed that through their kinship with the divine emperor they were superior to other peoples and any moral code other than what he promulgated. The unspeakable cruelties they perpetrated could be shrugged off because they were inflicted on lesser beings who had no more right to pity than pigs.
Most humans operate on this basis, Americans included. The number of true Humanists/Christians is rather small.
harasi ali , the dutch politician was raised in kenya.
her folks were not ultra-islam but she mark a sea change in her thinking when the local islamic school recieved financial support and 'teacher-goons' from iran. this occurred and all thoughts of integration living with 'others' fell out the window.
that was the mid eighties!!!!!!!!!!!!!
these islamo facists have been seeking foot soldiers worldwide for 20 years.
time to wakr up!!!!!!!!!!
greeting from downtowndubai..........
harasi ali , the dutch politician was raised in kenya.
her folks were not ultra-islam but she marks a sea change in her social thinking when the local islamic school recieved financial support and 'teacher-goons' from iran. this occurred and all thoughts of integration living with 'others' fell out the window.
that was the mid eighties!!!!!!!!!!!!!
these islamo facists have been seeking foot soldiers worldwide for 20 years.
time to wakr up!!!!!!!!!!
greeting from downtowndubai..........
The Report of the 9/11 Commission pointed out that money is the lifeblood of al Qaeda. It was money that let the 9/11 conspirators flit around the world, purchase their training and airline tickets, and stay one step ahead of law enforcement. Without money, bin Laden is impotent.
In all likelihood, the princpal source of this money isn't the British dole or contributions at mosques in downtown LA. Rather, it's money from oil - particularly oil purchased from Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Just as the threat of lung cancer is best dealt with by quitting smoking, the "cancer" of Islamic terrorism is best dealt with by denying it the money by which it becomes malignant. This means that the real solution lies not in law enforcement or military action, but in freeing ourselves from our dependence on oil. (I know: is that all?)
As long as we continue to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into countries controlled by religious fanatics, those countries will continue to fund madrassas around the world to spread their poison, and to spawn footloose, well-funded terrorists to attack us.
The availability of large sums of money certainly makes it easier to fund and execute the schemes being hatched by the terrorists, of all persuasions, in their quest for power.
However, terrorists are not the descriptive for the entire Muslim community, and more than any other that has a small minority which decides indiscriminate killing, even in perceived retribution, is acceptable.
Cutting off the money will not stop the terrorists--only when we try to understand their motivations, and therefore their potential plans, can we take effective steps to prevent more violence. The polio vaccine provided a means to eradicate polio, but the eventual cure still required people to take the serum, and also to practice more hygeinic conditions. Look at smallpox and others over the centuries, and you see the same thing. We need to do the same thing with terrorism--think about WHY it is occuring, and how they operate, and then reduce their capability to execute their designs. That means trying to fathom how they think.
By the way, early in WWII we did have the same problem with the Japanese, but later in the war, as military and civilian thinkers began to try to think like a Japanese commander, rather than how a professor at West Point taught planning and tactics, we began to get on the upside of the curve on how to defeat them.
terrorists are not the descriptive for the entire Muslim community, and more than any other that has a small minority which decides indiscriminate killing, even in perceived retribution, is acceptable.
Terrorists are not the descriptive for the entire Muslim community, but terrorism, grave desecration , genocide and slavery are descriptive for the Wahhabi sect.
The Wahhabis (Saudis) gained power over the Muslim Holy lands in the 1920's, and they began to spread their message throughout the Muslim world. The Wahhabi-influenced Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt produced the first outbreaks of what we now call terrorism. The Taliban were influenced and paid generous sums by the Wahhabis. The Iranian Islamist government is so Wahhabi influenced, many Persians call Khomeini's followers "Arabs".
After the oil crisis, when Wahhabi-influenced Muslims realized how much power they had, there was no stopping them.
Most of the suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudis. The "insurgency" in Iraq began with attacks, made, most likely by foreign fighters, against the Iraqi oil fields. If we made genuine efforts to eliminate the oil industry or to sanction them, and if we did not cripple Wahhabi-sponsored terrorist groups first, we would probably suffer terrorist attacks.
Wahhabis are at war in an effort to gain economic and political dominance. They're hated throughout the Muslim world for the crimes they've committed. We can't fight this war unless we know their history and their tactics.
We can't fight this war until we understand ourselves too. Why are we so willing to ignore their atrocities and cooperate with them? Why did the British let them take over the holy lands? Why do we call them allies? It's not just the oil.
"If they're so "persecuted" by the West, why are they beheading monks in Thailand? Why are they slaughtering Hindus in India? Why are they spending millions to create tribal strife and terror in Africa? Why are they enlaving and murdering blacks for the crime of being black? "
- The point is not that they are logical: they point is that they believe most of what they say.
Another answer is, because in Islamic law, any territory ever held by muslims is eternally islamic, and it is the religious duty of all muslims to "defend" that land. It is hard for "moderates" to argue against that, because this is exactly what the Koran says. Also, Islam is designed to be expansionist, and in one way al-qaida & allies are lying, they are not interested just in "defense", they are interested in expansion of the islamic world, but they do use the "defense" arguement to get more support. It is however perfectly in line with what Islam teaches: thus they cannot be called "extremists" as we define them in the west.
This is why it is fair to describe this as an actual religious war. Is the spread of any ideology "viral"?
Now, most Muslims don't accept military expansion today. But Bin Laden does have one valid issue with us: why are we propping up corrupt dictators in the Muslim world?
Of course, if we stop propping them up, bin laden would not become our friend, and would continue trying to strike at us. We still need to defeat al-qaida and their insurgency followers (much more decisively than the PC war is doing now, i.e. destroy all known terrorist training camps in syria).
But is it really in our interest to prop up either secular or islamist dictators?
But is it really in our interest to prop up either secular or islamist dictators?
No.
Is the spread of any ideology "viral"?
Islamic (Sharia) law in its extreme form is the legal system that motivates and justifies terrorism. The central goal of all terrorists is to force unwilling populations, Muslim or not, to live under Sharia.
Even the most "liberal" forms of sharia law are misogynistic, apartheid and contrary to basic human rights. Since the goal of terrorism is to spread Sharia laws, not Islam, and since Sharia is an apartheid system at best, a genocidal one at its worst, I'd call this ideology "viral".