The Roots of Terrorism: How We Combat Terrorism

In the two blogs previous to this one, I argued that two of the major underlying causes of terrorism are foreign military occupation, and poverty. I went on to illustrate that one connection between how terrorists recruit people and how gangs in the US recruit people is that they prey on the young and unemployed. 

In addition to the parallel of how gangs/drug dealers recruit new members and how terrorists recruit new members, I also believe there is a parallel in how the U.S. government has delt with these two groups of people. 

I give you the man who declared the "War on Drugs"

When drug usage rates were at an all time high in the early seventies, how did the President Nixon decide to decrease them? Well they came up with the creatively titled "War on Drugs". The government has spent over $1 trillion on the "war". Meanwhile, organizations like the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Department of Education Anti-drug Funds, took hits to their funding of over 75% between 1981 and 1984. I believe this led to the 708% increase in incarcarations between when the war started in 1971 and 2008. And what happens to someone once they get out of their “correctional” facility? Well, now they have a jail record so getting any sort of a job is that much tougher. Often, they end up going right back to prison for doing the same crime that got them locked up in the first place. Politicians love to be "tough on crime", but after 40 years of this lock-up first and ask questions later policy not making any significant dent in drug usage rates, well, I think we need to start asking questions. Namely, is this "tough on crime" approach the right one?

And our approach with the war on terror is similar in many ways. As I discussed in the first post of this series, the US has spent over billion of dollars, deployed millions of troops, and killed over 100,000 innocent civilians in the war on terror. But when foreign military occupation leads to terrorism, I can't help but wonder if this is the best way of stopping terrorism.

Clearly, the U.S. government is fond of this highly expensive blunt force approach when dealing with issues such as terrorism and drug rates. Unfortunately, it seems as though this approach hasn't truly "dealt" with these issues at all. After all, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are still at large and drug usage rates continue to increase. Our government needs to radically change the way it deals with both drug-related arrests and terrorism.

As I discussed in my last blog, both of these issues are deeply rooted in poverty. So instead of focusing our efforts on incarcerating and killing people, we should focus on stimulating job growth both at home and abroad. If you provide someone with a purpose in life and a steady income through a job then they wont need to search for these things in a terrorist group or gang. I'm not saying that we shouldn't arrest people for drug dealing or that it isn't at times necessary to fight terrorist groups with violence; Rather, I'm saying that our government should change our policies regarding drug-related arrests (lessening the jail time for possesion of relatively small amounts of drugs would be a start) and alter the way we combat terrorism.

What changes need to be made to the way our government is currently combating terrorism? Well, if our government used less violence and military force, and instead chose to combat poverty and provide foreign aid I think the number of terrorists trying to attack the US would decrease. If we  focused on helping these countries to improve their infrastructure instead of raising a coup or occupuying their soil, then we could improve foreign relations, decrease the number of terrorists being recruited, decrease the number of terrorist attacks or attempted attacks on US citizens and soldiers,  decrease the amount of money we spend on defense, and ultimately save a whole lot of lives on both sides.

The Roots of Terrorism: Poverty

In my last blog, I argued that U.S. military occupation of foreign countries can hurt our relations with the citizens of those countries and ultimately lead to terrorism. In this blog I would like to discuss another major cause of terrorism: Poverty.

One man who understands terrorism and what leads to a great deal is Mohamed Ali (the human rights advocate not to be confused with the legendary boxer). In his Ted Talk: the link between terrorism and unemployment, Ali brings this link to light by telling us the story of a young boy from a small village. The text of this story is provided below.

Mohamed Ali giving his Ted Talk in  September of 2013

"I would like to talk to you about a story about a small town kid. I don't know his name, but I do know his story. He lives in a small village in southern Somalia. His village is near Mogadishu. Drought drives the small village into poverty and to the brink of starvation. With nothing left for him there, he leaves for the big city, in this case, Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. When he arrives, there are no opportunities, no jobs, no way forward. He ends up living in a tent city on the outskirts of Mogadishu. Maybe a year passes, nothing. One day, he's approached by a gentleman who offers to take him to lunch, then to dinner, to breakfast. He meets this dynamic group of people, and they give him a break. He's given a bit of money to buy himself some new clothes, money to send back home to his family. He is introduced to this young woman. He eventually gets married. He starts this new life. He has a purpose in life. One beautiful day in Mogadishu, under an azure blue sky, a car bomb goes off. That small town kid with the big city dreams was the suicide bomber, and that dynamic group of people were al Shabaab, a terrorist organization linked to al Qaeda."

When people have no education, no opportunities, no income, no future, they become perfect targets for terrorist organizations to recruit. If that boy had been able to find some work he wouldn’t have been living on the streets and thus, wouldn’t have been recruited by terrorists in the first place. It is much less likely that a person with a full time job and steady, substantial income would throw that away than a person with no income and no direction in life. Terrorists know this, and chose who they try and recruit accordingly.

The story of this boy is not all that different from the story of our own impoverished urban youth. After all, gangs operate in a very similar way. They prey on young kids who are the most deprived. They give them a source of income and a sense of belonging. Eventually though, just like the story of the young kid from Somalia, they are the ones who have to pay the price; Ending up in prison or worse due to factors that are largely out of their control. The link between poverty and crime is an old and obvious one and terrorism is really just another type of crime: a horrific crime, but a crime nonetheless.

If poverty and terrorism go hand in hand, then why not try to work with countries in which terrorism is prevelant to provide foreign aid and work to stimulate job growth? Why has our country not tried dealing with terrorism in that way? Additionally, how has our nation dealt with terrorism? The next blog in this series will address some of these questions in more depth.

The Root of Terrorism: Foreign Military Occupation

A little while back, in an American Studies course I am taking we began learning about US involvement in The War on Terror. And after learning more in depth about the attacks of 9/11, I couldn't help but wonder (as I had often wondered before because I never seemed to receive an explanation from teachers): what could lead someone to do something as horrible as terrorism? In this blog and the next couple of blogs following it, we will be exploring this question.

After doing some research, I came across this website by author and historian William Blum who believes that the attacks were due to "envy and irrational hatred". President Bush would agree as he is quoted as saying, "we were attacked because we are beautiful people, spreading freedom around the world". While I don't think that the cause of the attacks was due to Americans beauty, I think there could be some truth in the president's second point. That is,  if by "spreading freedom" he really means foreign military occupation, coups, and other military means to spread and maintain democracy. Oh and of course making sure we acquire some valuable resources (oil) along the way.

Remember him?

Robert Pape, professor of Political Science at University of chicago and author of Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It, has some valuable insight on the causes of terrorism, "suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign--over 95 percent of all the incidents--has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw." Americans often blame Islam (and sometimes even other religions from Southeast Asia such as Sikhism) for the 9/11 attacks, and while yes, the people who committed the attacks were Muslim extremists, I agree with Mr. Pape that foreign military occupation is a at the root of terrorism. Where as, religious factors are merely the surface.

This brings to mind a clip from the movie The Hurt Locker, a movie about an Explosive Ordinance Disposal team during the Iraq war. The screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded as a journalist in 2004 with a U.S. Army EOD team in Iraq and I think that he included this scene to illustrate the effect that US military occupation of foreign countries can have on the citizens of the country.

The tail end of the clip illustrates this when the man in the bomb suit (Jeremy Renner) says, "Well if he wasn't an insurgent, he sure the hell is now." Occupying foreign countries causes tension between the local populations and US troops which then causes outrage and anger towards the US government, and this clip shows how it can unfold on a personal level.

The government has spent over $1.28 billion and over 2,333,972 American military personnel have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The exact number of civilian casualties isn't known but the amount of documented civilian casualties is well over 100,000. All the troops, all the humvees, the drones and deaths have yes, stopped some terrorists, but the have created a whole bunch more in their path. And I don't think this should be a surprise. When over 100,000 civilians have died, anger seems like a logical response. I know I'm certainly angry that our military killed all those innocent people. It appears to me to be the epitome of a vicious cycle. Spending money and deploying troops seems to result in the need for more money spent on defense and more troops. This begs the question, is there another way to fight terrorism without also fanning it's flames? This question should be kept in mind over the next couple of blogs as we explore the roots of terrorism further. And, as always, if you have any ideas, arguments, or criticisms, please feel free to add to the conversation.