Hit the Terrorists Where It Hurts: Their Vanity
Posted by David Shorr
I found David Ignatius' column about a new book by former CIA officer Marc Sageman really helpful as I wrestle with the question of how to view terrorists. You can watch video of a New America Foundation event for Sageman's book Leaderless Jihad, but it's the following passages that sparked a thought:
...the new jihadists are a weird species of the Internet culture. Outraged by video images of Americans killing Muslims in Iraq, they gather in password-protected chat rooms and dare each other to take action.
Sageman's policy advice is to "take the glory and thrill out of terrorism." Jettison the rhetoric about Muslim extremism -- these leaderless jihadists are barely Muslims. Stop holding news conferences to announce the latest triumphs in the "global war on terror," which only glamorize the struggle. And reduce the U.S. military footprint in Iraq, which now fuels the Muslim world's sense of moral outrage.
So if we really want to pull the rug out from under these guys, we need to target their vanity. It's a longstanding concern of mine that we have been contributing to just the heroic legend the terrorists are trying to cultivate.
Don't get me wrong. These people are out there, and we need to keep looking for them and stopping them. What's excessive is the idea that we have to steel the national will to respond to an evil of such magnitude. No, we need to keep looking for them and stopping them. Otherwise, if their perverse ambitions to heroism are based on the idea that they are the vanguard of the clash of civilizations, why should we gratify their ambitions? Think of it this way, what if those who frequent the chat rooms found their cause disappearing from the headlines? What if they couldn't find themselves when they try to vanity google? What if they faded from being such a big part of our consciousness? Who would that really hurt -- us, or them?
Spot on.
The only big problem is that the current leaders' vanity needs a war as well. Hopefully that will change next year.
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