Engaging Terror

Engaging Terror

Engaging Terror: A Critical and Interdisciplinary Approach is a collection of select extended papers drawn from The Human Condition Series (THCS) conference on Terror that took place in May, 2008. The international scope of the conference drew participants from twenty-three countries including Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, France, Israel, Lebanon, Lithuania, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The thirty-five essays presented here are a representative sample of the interdisciplinary discussion which sought to analyze popular concepts like 'terrorism' and 'terrorist' as social, political, and psychosocial phenomena. Engaging Terror seeks to reveal the diverse forms of terror that persist in contemporary societies. For instance, cultural forms such as the fine arts, film, literature, mass media, religion, and market economy continue to define and limit rationality and freedom through institutionalized forms of terror. In this way, terror shapes our experiences not only through the politics of nation-building and international relations, but also through the social and ideological production of fear in everyday life. Topics covered in this volume include the representation and production of terror from a multiplicity of sites, ranging from mental health practices and organized religion, to news coverage and musical scores. This book will appeal to both scholars and general readers interested in how seemingly benign forms of terror shape and maintain the contemporary human condition. Reaching beyond mainstream studies on terror as simply an international political phenomenon, this interdisciplinary collection of work multiplies the fields of critical research to broaden the scope of analysis and fundamentally challenge the state of modernity.

Thinking Like a Terrorist

As the fifth full year of America's global war on terrorism continues, statistics concerning terrorist attacks show a disturbing trend: from a twenty-one-year high in 2003, attacks tripled in 2004 and then doubled in 2005. And as the incidence of terrorist attacks increased, so has the number of terrorists. While the primary leaders of the Taliban, al Qaeda, and al Qaeda in Iraq remain at large, a 2006 Department of Defense study reportedly identified thirty new al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups that have been created since September 11, 2001. We may not have metrics that measure our success in the war on terrorism, but these realities certainly illuminate our failures. In Thinking Like a Terrorist, former FBI counterterrorism agent Mike German contends that the overarching problem is a fundamental failure to understand the terrorists-namely, what they want and how they intend to get it. When our counterterrorism policies are driven by misunderstanding and misperception, we shouldn't be surprised at the results. Today's terrorists have a real plan-a blueprint that has brought them victory in the past-that they are executing to perfection; moreover, their plan is published and available to anyone who bothers to read it. Once the terrorists' plan is understood, we can develop and implement more effective counterterrorism strategies. A former undercover agent who infiltrated neo-Nazi terrorist groups in the United States, German explains the terrorist's point of view and discusses ways to counter the terrorism threat. Based on his unusual experience in the field, Thinking Like a Terrorist provides unique insights into why terrorism is such a persistent and difficult problem and why the U.S. approach to counterterrorism isn't working.

Political Terrorism