By Kerry Givens
To truly understand the concept of terrorism and its recent connection to drug cartels we must first understand that terrorism justifies its violent actions based on alleged, collective principles. It is important to know how wrong thinking can replace right thinking in relation to these principles, and why those who engage in terrorist activity might believe God is asking this of them. In order to do this, we need to look both at the psychological level of thought and motivation in individuals.
The international criminal justice community defines terrorism as the use of violence to intimidate and to obtain submission by the victims thereof. The perpetrators tend to be committed to their cause and devoid of peaceful means to attain them. In most cases their grievances are somewhat legitimate and the means to achieve them invariably devoid of compassion, deliberative thought and legitimacy. It is important to understand the circumstances that alter the usual benignly selfish psyche of all human beings to this violently state. In exchange for providing joiners with meaningful existences and for fulfilling their emotional needs, the leader requests and receives unquestioning obedience from the joiners. Long-term members of the group support the leader’s obedience pressure by applying conformity pressure on new joiners in order to forestall any deviation from the group’s mission or values. The joiners’ initial susceptibility to this intense obedience and conformity pressure makes them extremely vulnerable to the five-phase social psychological conditioning process used in violent cults.
This theory is supported in reading both Terrorists Are Made, Not Born: Creating Terrorists Using Social Psychological Conditioning by Anthony Stahelski in the online Journal of Homeland Security and Altruism and Fatalism: The Characteristics of Palestinian Suicide Terrorists from TerrorismExperts.org. There are two theories that explain and define modern terrorism: Altruism and Fatalism. Based on Durkheims’ Suicide. Glenco: Free Press. Altruism suicide may occur when a person becomes deeply integrated into a social group and suicide becomes a ‘duty’ for the members of that group. Moreover, Johnson argues that people who commit altruistic suicide perceive their own lives as secondary to the interest of the collective. Hence, the tendency to commit suicide will increase if the person believes that by sacrificing his/her life, it will help the collective achieve its goals. This is apparent in the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli government. Group such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda feel that the progression of Islam and Middle Eastern states is dependent upon the fall of Judah western philosophy. The groups feel that they are not only doing this for there state but for all Muslims and the religion of Islam. All groups use the foundation of religious jihad and the notion that terrorist actions will further the Islamic religious agenda.
This pattern coincides with the concept of terrorism, according to which the suicidal act stems from a strong religious conviction in the glorious destiny which awaits the perpetrator in the afterlife, following the fulfillment of his mission on earth. Such beliefs can be derived from certain interpretations of Islam as well as other religious beliefs. Terrorism have plagued the Russian, Cambodian, Tokyo and Indonesian governments. Due to poverty and political unrest among minority groups within the government’s terrorism and drug trade has been seen as a common tactic among the terrorists. In the Russian province of Chechnya women Chechen guerrillas, some wearing burqa, had reportedly taken part in the attack on a Russian theater on Oct 23, 2002, which ended with 129 hostages dead, and the recent Sept 1 school hostage-taking incident in the southern Russian town of Beslan that left 330 dead, mostly children.
Indonesian radical groups with links to the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist network have produced VCDs and documents on how Chechen separatists make and use land mines and bombs for their cause. Incidents of terrorism in East Asia increased in 1997. Continuing defections from the Khmer Rouge to Cambodian forces reduced the threat from the terrorist group, but guerrillas in the Cambodian provinces have been responsible for deadly attacks on foreigners. The unstable political situation in Cambodia has led to marked political violence, and the most significant act of terrorism and increased drug trafficking there was a grenade attack on an opposition political rally in March 2004, which left 19 persons dead and injured more than 100, including a US citizen. In Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) showed no signs of abandoning their campaign to cripple the Sri Lankan economy and target government officials. The group retains its ability to strike in the heart of Colombo, as demonstrated by an October bomb attack on the World Trade Center in the financial district that was reminiscent of the January 1996 truck bomb attack that destroyed the Central Bank. With the government’s labeling well organized cartels as terrorist groups has supported a companionship between the groups. The Mujahedeen rebels are the prototype organization that embodies the hybrid structure. They originate and function in the opium filled mountains of Afghanistan. They use the opium to fund their training camps and missions. The rebels sell there poppy to the Colombian and Triad organizations for safe heaven, intelligence, weapons.
It is important to understand the circumstances that alter the usual benignly selfish psyche of all human beings to this violently state. In exchange for providing joiners with meaningful existences and for fulfilling their affiliatative emotional needs, the leader requests and receives unquestioning obedience from the joiners.
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