 |
SwiftVets.com
Service to Country
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
noc
PO1
Joined: 24 Aug 2004
Posts: 492
Location: Dublin, CA
|
 Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 6:27 pm Post subject: Understanding Terror Networks |
 |
|
Understanding Terror Networks
by Marc Sageman
November 1, 2004
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20041101.middleeast.sageman.understandingterrornetworks.html
Marc Sageman, a newly appointed FPRI Senior Fellow, was a CIA case officer in Afghanistan between 1987–89 and is now a forensic psychiatrist. This essay is based on his FPRI BookTalk on October 6, 2004, which doubled as one of our regular Situation Reports on the War on Terrorism, held every two months. His book, Understanding Terror Networks, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press earlier this year.
After leaving the CIA, I was happy in my naive belief that I had left all that behind me. But after 9-11, like everyone, I wanted to do something. What people were saying about the perpetrators shortly after the attacks was simply not consistent with my own experience. I began to apply the principles of evidence-based medicine to terrorism research, because there really was no data on the perpetrators. There were theories, opinions, and anecdotal evidence, but there was no systematic gathering of data.
I started gathering terrorist biographies from various sources, mostly from the records of trials. The trial that took place in New York in 2001 in connection with the 1998 embassy bombing, for instance, was 72 days long and had a wealth of information, 9,000 pages of it. I wanted to collect this information to test the conventional wisdom about terrorism. With some 400 biographies, all in a matrix, I began social-network analysis of this group.
...cont.
Sorry if this has been posted, but this is a very good read. Click on the link for the complete essay. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2004 3:26 am Post subject: Re: Understanding Terror Networks |
|
|
| noc wrote: | Understanding Terror Networks
by Marc Sageman
November 1, 2004
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20041101.middleeast.sageman.understandingterrornetworks.html
Marc Sageman, a newly appointed FPRI Senior Fellow, was a CIA case officer in Afghanistan between 1987–89 and is now a forensic psychiatrist. This essay is based on his FPRI BookTalk on October 6, 2004, which doubled as one of our regular Situation Reports on the War on Terrorism, held every two months. His book, Understanding Terror Networks, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press earlier this year.
After leaving the CIA, I was happy in my naive belief that I had left all that behind me. But after 9-11, like everyone, I wanted to do something. What people were saying about the perpetrators shortly after the attacks was simply not consistent with my own experience. I began to apply the principles of evidence-based medicine to terrorism research, because there really was no data on the perpetrators. There were theories, opinions, and anecdotal evidence, but there was no systematic gathering of data.
I started gathering terrorist biographies from various sources, mostly from the records of trials. The trial that took place in New York in 2001 in connection with the 1998 embassy bombing, for instance, was 72 days long and had a wealth of information, 9,000 pages of it. I wanted to collect this information to test the conventional wisdom about terrorism. With some 400 biographies, all in a matrix, I began social-network analysis of this group.
...cont.
Sorry if this has been posted, but this is a very good read. Click on the link for the complete essay. |
Thanks for the link and concur it’s a good read. Sageman misses the point though on motive. In his articulate explanation of the history of the people and the fact that they are all educated he concludes through his matrix these are but volunteers and does not properly identify their reason for committing the evil acts they do. His summation of argument is these people are group actors enabling each other similar to the way the Germans enabled the Nazis in WWII. But he is wrong in this point; this is simply about morality and wrong from right. These people are evil and are born and brought up in a culture of no morality and values prescribed by god. These are people who worship at the table of relativity and pray upon the uneducated for their wicked ways. The motive is not to create some distant utopia such as they might believe their ancestors lived in or even something which can be compared to the left wings communistic ideology, rather this is just another form of the absence of god which all ideologies of hate and evil preach. Fascism, totalitarianism, feminism, communism, socialism, environmentalism, islamofascism all have one thing in common. Hate everyone, but yourself. Take an anthropocentric view of the world and then live your life. Basically embrace everything negative and evil.
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
