Wired published an interesting article on “The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Terrorists” in relation to counter-terrorism policy, one that strikes a chord somewhere between pacifist passivity and country-busting invasion.
To quote a quote:
Terrorists, he writes, (1) attack civilians, a policy that has a lousy track record of convincing those civilians to give the terrorists what they want; (2) treat terrorism as a first resort, not a last resort, failing to embrace nonviolent alternatives like elections; (3) don’t compromise with their target country, even when those compromises are in their best interest politically; (4) have protean political platforms, which regularly, and sometimes radically, change; (5) often engage in anonymous attacks, which precludes the target countries making political concessions to them; (6) regularly attack other terrorist groups with the same political platform; and (7) resist disbanding, even when they consistently fail to achieve their political objectives or when their stated political objectives have been achieved.
Not all true in every case, but certainly closer to a general litmus than noting that Islam propagates terrorism or that a sit-down meeting with terrorist “leaders” accomplishes much. Nor does invading a country rife with terrorists – which could mean 1/10,000 of the population – as this is likely to do little more than create a revolving door of disaffected youth and orphans of war-like displacement and death in its many forms.
And yes, the mules are global political experts. They have a blog, duh.
