What Motivates Terrorists?
Abstract
This paper will seek to understand what really motivates terrorists to commit the acts that make them so infamous. We are assuming that the chief motivating factor behind the decisions of terrorist organizations is the political outcome of their acts balanced against the risk and collateral damage inflicted to achieve this end. We will also weigh in the appeal of terrorism on potential recruits in weak states and determine how the motivations of the group become the motivation of the individual and how this benefits the decentralized organization of terrorist organizations like al Qaeda.
What Motivates Terrorists?
“Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise,
terror, sabotage,
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We assume the political options have been weighed and other political avenues are blocked leaving terrorists the only option left of resorting to the bombing of innocents. This marks the logic of terrorist groups as one of consequence. They have been made to resort to the decision to harm innocents. Al Qaeda loves to play the “you brought this upon yourselves” card to justify their actions.
The basic human rights are obviously violated by terrorist groups. The right to live free and without fear is taken from the innocent when a bomb explodes in their midst. This kind of collateral damage is justifiable by terrorists. The innocent become objects rather than human beings. The terrorist to meet their political agendas uses these objects. “In being treated as an object, the innocent victim is worse off than the (alleged) guilty victim. Insofar as the latter is judged to have done a wrong, he is thought of as a human” (Fotion, 1981).
These groups advocate that the loss of human rights for some will result in the respect of human rights for all. Essentially and end to war and a world ran by sharia. Even if their claims of unavoidable collateral damage were justifiable, that is not enough to make terrorism itself justified.
The argument exists that terrorists actually do not achieve their political goals by attacking
The statement that one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist is not valid and this is because the differences between the two are far more complex than perspective alone. The issue with perspective being the only distinction is in the difficulty to accurately define terrorism in a way synonymous to describing the characteristics of a freedom fighter. In examining the characteristics of numerous definitions it becomes evident that there is a distinction in the relationship which terrorists and freedom fighters have with civilians when carrying out their violent and politically motivated goals.
Terrorist organizations from the past did not have much exposure compare to terrorist organizations now who have diverse media outlets. The different types of media coverage's include the internet , social media, news, and YouTube videos. Terrorist have an advantage with these media outlets, they can recruit members to join the fight against those who are against Islam. These individual can receive training from these terrorist organization. Training can include how to make a bomb, fight tactics, or planning terrorist attack. They play to and for an audience, and solicit audience participation (Hoffman 2006, 173). These terrorist organization want as much media exposure as to bring terror to those who oppose them. By these terrorist attack
Although there is not a mutual agreement on how to handle terrorism there is the shared common belief that it needs to be dealt with and at the same time the citizens need to be protected. With that being said, this chapter goes along side with chapter 10 which deals with human rights and human security.
The most common and frequently the most serious problem in legal definitions of terrorism under national laws is that they are overbroad and vague. As a basic legal principle, such laws fail to give reasonable notice of what actions are covered. Many are so broad that they cover common crimes that should not reasonably be deemed terrorist or acts that should not be considered crimes at all. “Their scope leaves them susceptible to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement by the authorities” (In the Name of Security). Few terrorism definitions are so narrowly drawn. In general, definitions of terrorism tend to cover acts carried out for a wide variety of purposes, often with no requirement that they cause or intend to cause death or serious injury, and without specifying the level of physical property damage required to render an act terrorist. “Legal definitions of terrorism generally specify two or three basic elements: the act and purpose, or the act, intent, and purpose” (In the Name of Security). The crime of terrorism is typically characterized as an act carried out with a particular intent—for example, the intent to kill—and for a specific purpose, such as coercing or intimidating a government or population into performing or abstaining from an action. The American Civil Liberties Union
“In addition to communicating messages of fear to the mass audience, terrorists also may polarize public opinion, make converts, mislead the enemy by spreading false information, win publicity, advertise causes and movement, and discredit victim(s), to name just a few (Denton, 2004, p. 3)”. These terrorists wanted to get across this message that they wanted the United States citizens to stay out of the Middle East and to destroy or corrupt Christianity. Their main tactic in accomplishing their goals, was to scare off whoever they thought were intruding on their customs and country.
The word ‘terrorism’ can be traced back to the French Revolution and the reign of terror committed against the population of France in the 1790s. During this time, thousands of people were killed and the general population was severely oppressed. Also, some of the first instances of terrorist tactics, such as assassination and intimidation, were witnessed in the killing of prominent officials and other opponents of the Revolution. In general, terrorists aim to incite fear in the population through pre-meditated violent acts and gain publicity as a medium in achieving their goals. Such acts include taking hostages, bombings and assassinations, all of which create fear and compliance in a victim or audience. Terrorism can be distinguished from other types of political violence through its disregard for and intentional harming of innocent civilians. Also, terrorists usually adopt a state of mind where one side is always good and any opposition is bad and deserves to be punished. As a result, terrorists will always have some supporters who share the same radical thoughts as them and thus terrorism, as a whole, will always be accepted as a legitimate use of violence. This is the reasoning behind the famous phrase by Gerald Seymour, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”(QUOTE
Terrorism is an act of violence, usually done in the public sphere, which is used to incite fear in a population in order to coerce change in public opinion or a government’s position on an issue. In many parts of the world, groups wage war with their countries, either to separate from the government or to overthrow it entirely. Sometimes these people are treated unfairly by their government, and their struggles are justified. Other times, these groups use violence against both military and civilian targets, terrorizing innocent bystanders to get what they want—these groups are terrorists. Often, though, it is difficult to tell the difference.
When psychologists study motivation, it’s sometimes puzzling to understand the motivation behind suicide bombers. Why would someone kill tens, hundreds, or even thousand people while killing themselves in the process? The Intersection addresses this. I feel that if psychologists can understand why suicide bombers do what they do, they might be able to prevent it. Many attacks like these are made because the terrorizer wants to make a social change. It’s a big challenge trying to get inside the brain of these bombers because you can’t really talk to them after the fact. However, we can read their farewell letters, wills, watch farewell videos. Just the fact that they have these documents means that they probably want to be remembered after
Terrorism is a difficult issue to understand and grasp for many people. What is even more difficult to understand is what drives an individual to become radicalized to the point of joining a terrorist organization and committing terrorist acts. While there is not specific criteria or a “cookie cutter” approach to understanding what motivates and radicalizes an individual to participate in such atrocities, there are however, several psychological and behavioral factors that have been common among these individuals. The following paper will outline some of the psychological and behavioral factors that attribute to an individual’s radicalization and eventual willingness and even perhaps
Terrorists deny the authenticity of states, the rights of people , the unique importance of individual human beings and ultimately morality. Terrorists for one reason or another, loathe our freedom and our way of life. (Zupan, 2004)
There are many things can be seen in the psychology of terrorism. Unfortunately there is not good science on psychological factors of terrorism; there are theories and educated opinions (DeAngelis, 2009). The one overarching factor is the fear with which terrorism is based. By definition, terrorism is acts that cause terror by one group on to another, usually for political goals (“Terrorism”, n.d.). Why people suffer from these fears is related to their psychological behavior. Terrorist activity can be described as “fostering a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, in demonstrating the incompetence of the authorities, destroying a sense of security and safety, and in provoking inappropriate reactions from individuals and authorities.” (Alexander & Klein, 2005). Terrorists themselves are affected by psychological behavior; their own and that of others around them. They may even be affected by the behavior of victims and potential victims. Osama Bin Laden has even been known to admit that in the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, his
The act of terrorism, an unlawful use of violence and intimidation, is most commonly seen targeting civilians but can also include damage to property or injury to specific individuals. These malicious acts are used to fulfil political, religious or ideological aims in attempt of intimidating the government or society. Terrorisms’ impact reflects on the government and society extracting various responses, both legal and non-legal. The effectiveness of these responses, aimed at obtaining equal justice against terrorism, tend to vary while considering the concepts of preventing terrorist attacks while not infringing on human rights and the resolution of the ‘war against terrorism’. The evident lack of consistency in these responses has been reflected
In addition, terrorist groups come from a failed country or a country who have had human rights issues by
The political interests is power the oil or take over countries. The murders are people without values to enroll very young in this gangs. The terrorists are often motivated ideals founded since child hood. The leaders make them a head washing, telling them die as heroes.The most young people haven’t home, values, family and money. The leaders are people who are not afraid of death.
In both examples mentioned above, there are exact motivating factors. In both cases the motivating factors are ideology and religion. But there are also many other factors which make people become terrorists and take guns in their hands or blow themselves