Today's new terrorists were radical before they were religious

[rug]

By Fareed Zakaria
March 31 at 4:04 PM

The attacks in Brussels, on the heels of those in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have stoked an already white-hot debate about Islamic terrorism in the United States. Many in the West, including the two Republican presidential front-runners, Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), urge a campaign that targets Muslim communities more directly, searching for those who might be prone to religious extremism and thus terrorism.

But the recent bombings in Europe are being perpetrated by a new generation of terrorists who are upending our previous understanding of what motivates such people and how to find and stop them. To put it simply, today’s terrorists are not religious extremists who became radicals but rather radicals who became religious extremists. The difference is crucial.

Look at the two brothers who planned and executed the Brussels bombings, Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui. Born into a working-class immigrant family (from Morocco), they were not particularly religious and early on chose a life of crime. By their mid-20s, the two had participated in carjackings and armed robberies. Ibrahim was sentenced to nine years in prison for attempted murder; his brother, five years for armed robbery. And then, it seems, in prison or after, their path to jihad began.

Their story is strikingly similar to those of many of the other terrorists in Belgium and France. Few were devout Muslims. Abdelhamid Abaaoud , the ringleader of the Paris attacks, regularly used drugs and drank alcohol, as did many of his comrades-in-arms. In August 2014, the New Statesman reported on two British jihadis, both 22, who, before leaving Birmingham for Syria, bought copies of “Islam for Dummies” and “The Koran for Dummies.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/todays-new-terrorists-were-radical-before-they-were-religious/2016/03/31/9cb8e916-f762-11e5-9804-537defcc3cf6_story.html

[Bad Dog]

1. The same can be said of the Spanish bombers.

They all started off in petty crime, drugs, prostitution then became radicalised along the line. Some were radicalised in prison, others weren't. We're talking disaffected young men looking for a purpose to their lives. The less they know about Islam the better, they're less likely to disbelieve their recruiter.

[rug]

2. A very good point.

Compared to revolutionaries, terrorists have a shallow understanding of ideology, often no more than slogans. The latter has no concept of what a mass movement is. Compare the Weather Underground in the US, or the Baader-Meinhof Group im Germany to the Bolsheviks in the Russian Empire or M-26-7 in Cuba. In many ways, terroristic acts are the height of narcissism, a psychological state, and not a developed ideology, political or otherwise.

[Bad Dog]

5. They believe what they're told.

An ex Al Qaida member who ended up spying for MI5 has been giving interviews on the BBC. He became disillusioned following the American embassy bombings in Kenya in which so many Kenyan civilians died. When he spoke to Al Qaida's imam about this he was told of a Fatwa that allowed it. Now most people would just have accepted it, but he looked the Fatwa up. It dated from the Mongol invasion where Muslim civilians were tied to siege towers. The Fatwa said in those circumstances it was acceptable to attack the siege towers, (and the human shields,) because it was a matter of self defence. Something very different from the embassy bombings.

[rug]

27. Very interesting.

Thanks.

[Bad Dog]

37. Thank you.

For not trying to misrepresent what I'm saying.

[rug]

40. Misrepresentation and strawmen are the lingua franca of many in here.

That's why your facts are so refreshing to read.

[Bad Dog]

41. I've noticed that.

Thank you again.

[skepticscott]

3. It took religious fanaticism

to get them to murder people wantonly.

QED

[Bad Dog]

4. It could have been any ideology.

You're missing the point. Some would say deliberately.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. I'm "missing the point" too, then

We have some average criminals - somehow, that is called being 'radical', though that's the first time I've heard of carjackers and armed robbers being called 'radical', and I hope you can explain that to me too - and when they take up fundamentalist Islam, they turn to murder.

You say it could have been any ideology - so, liberalism, then? You think that criminals who take up the cause of liberalism in prison will come out and murder for it?

Really?

"Any ideology"?

[Bad Dog]

13. Back in the late 19th Century in was Anarchism.

Have you read Conrad's The Secret Agent?

In its lust for power Liberalism ripped up solemn pledges and ensured the Tories were in power. And Jeremy Thorpe probably tried to murder Norman Scott.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. I'm going to take that as an admission you didn't have a point (nt)

[Bad Dog]

22. Which is a lot easier than responding to the point I made.

It's the Humpty Dumpty approach to debate. Are you honestly saying that it would be impossible for someone, like say Derren Brown, to take a petty criminal and convince him to bomb a polling station because we don't have PR?

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. Derren Brown is not the leader of an ideology

You are bringing up irrelevant examples. You said "any ideology" could have turned minor criminals into people who plan mass murder for the sake of the ideology. Jeremy Thorpe did not persuade any followers to kill - if there was anything to it, it was a man fearful of blackmail who paid someone else to kill (if they'd gone through with it).

You say that any ideology could be committing mass murder. This is moral relativism taken to its mind-numbingly stupid extreme. No, supporting the Tories in power is not the equivalent of a movement that murders other religions in what is officially acknowledged as genocide.

[Bad Dog]

34. I know what I said.

And you're only taking issue with it because I said it. Let's face it you've been trying to pick an argument with me ever since I was less than complimentary about your mate Sandra Gidley.

Blair's government was the most liberal of all Labour governments and that lead to the illegal war in Iraq and the butchering of thousands of Iraqi women and children. How's your moral relativism square that circle?

Don't worry about answering because I'm putting you on ignore. I'm not wasting my time with someone who has a personal grudge against me, and despite their signature line is quite free and easy with insults like mind-numbingly stupid.

[Goblinmonger]

11. So some kid that carjacks in Detroit

is just waiting for something to make him want to suicide bomb?

Any proof for that other than conjecture?

[Bad Dog]

12. The proof is in the backgrounds of many IS terrorists.

[Goblinmonger]

15. Their religion is part of their background, too.

The realization that most criminals don't turn into suicide bombers makes your sample size pretty minor.

[Bad Dog]

20. Who said anything about it being widespread.

The fact remains, a lot of suicide bombers start off as petty criminals, not as devout Muslims.

[Goblinmonger]

21. My point is that any statistical correlation is going to be about 0.

You can say it all you want, but they bomb because of their religion. Most criminals don't become suicide bombers. Any link you are trying to make between those two is spurious. At best.

[Bad Dog]

23. The point is that you can try to understand

what causes impressionable young men to become radicalised, and try to do something to stop it. Or you can sit on your high horse, condemn Islam, thus pushing more impressionable young men into the hands of jihadists.

[Goblinmonger]

24. I'm not condemning Islam. It's a big religion.

But I'm also recognizing that a lot of the problem rests with a portion of that religion and how people are approaching it.

I think I am absolutely 0% the cause for young men becoming jihadists.

[Bad Dog]

36. You think you're 0% of the cause.

You're an American. Have you any idea what your country has been up to in the Middle East?

[skepticscott]

14. Next time you see a group of secular humanists

bombing an airport or shooting up a magazine office in the name of their ideology, you be sure to let us know, won't you?

Got the point now?

[Goblinmonger]

17. They'd had to start by carjacking.

You just don't get it.

It's fun watching the levels people go to to excuse religion.

[Bad Dog]

19. Secular humanists seem to have a lot of political power as it is right now.

Have you got the point yet?

[skepticscott]

29. Which isn't remotely relevant to the bogus claim you made

that "any ideology" could inspire people to murderous violence.

Try again.

[Bad Dog]

35. It is relevant.

Those who have power don't need to carry out terrorist acts. The acts of violence they do carry out aren't even called terrorism.

I'm saying that we need to be a lot smarter in trying to see what motivates these would be terrorists in the first place. Since 9/11 there's been a lot of condemning of Islam with a broad brush, and what has that achieved? Jihadists are more of a problem now than before. We can keep patting ourselves on the back and saying how much superior we are or we can realistically think about stopping it.

I'm sure some of those mass shooters in America were secular humanists. When was the last time you heard of someone who wasn't American going into a packed cinema or a school and shooting the place up?

[skepticscott]

38. Are you seriously claiming that

secular humanists have more political power than religionists in the Middle East?

Sorry, but that's fucking idiotic.

[Bad Dog]

42. In Europe they do.

And this thread is about terrorist attacks in Europe. I notice you've switched from jihadist to religionist because you want to make this thread all about yourself.

What do you want, a pat on the head and to be called a clever boy because you're a secular humanist and you're so superior ideologically speaking compared to anyone who may believe in a higher power?

I'd rather talk about the subject matter than your hang ups.

[rug]

43. Yes, he does.

[Bad Dog]

44. He did seem to be reading from a script.

I've heard so many times before.

[rug]

45. It's a dog-eared script that by now can be recited while drunk.

[Bad Dog]

46. Something like all wars/atrocities can be blamed on religion.

And all atrocities carried out by regimes that call themselves atheist like Albania and Stalinist Russia have absolutely nothing to do with atheism itself.

[kwassa]

26. and you miss the point, of course, that many non-religious beliefs can bring about terrorism, too.

It is about the fanaticism rather than the nature of the belief.

[skepticscott]

30. Um..no..the (ridiculous) point someone attempted to make was

that "any ideology" could inspire people to murderous violence. Still waiting for that person to supply evidence of secular humanists committing mass murder in the name of their worldview.

But go ahead...help him out, kwassa. Give us a list of incidents in the last twenty years where secular humanists fanatics murdered a whole bunch of people because of their ideology. I'll make up a list of incidents where religious fanatics did the same.

Any bets on which list will be longer?

Seriously...you and the other religionists here really need to huddle up and get a new game plan. You can't seem to muster one coherent argument among the lot of you...

[kwassa]

31. You love false equivalencies.

Secular humanists don't have a unifying ideology that all adhere to. Bzzz, you lose.

Now, communist terrorists are atheists with an idealogy. Baider-Meinhof.

And then there are the nationalist terrorists like the IRA, and Black September.

All it takes is excessive belief in something.

[skepticscott]

32. Name me a religion that has a unifying ideology

that everyone who includes themselves in that religion adheres to perfectly.

Oh, right...you can't. Because that's a dopey requirement for something to qualify as an "ideology". You certainly can't name a set of principles that every single "communist terrorist" in the world adheres to, either. But there are many elucidated principles that underlie secular humanism, as you'd know if you bothered to learn before you blather.

[kwassa]

33. so you move the goalposts ....

Name me a religion that has a unifying ideology that everyone who includes themselves in that religion adheres to perfectly.

Gee, you add new requirements! and then claim that as a requirement for an ideology.

All belief systems have a unifying ideology; participants in this belief system may only adopt a few of them, as seen in ISIS.

Talking about secular humanism is entirely irrelevant, though. The point is, and the point still stands, that fanaticism comes from not only religious belief systems, but from secular belief systems as well. There is nothing unique about religion, or Islam in particular, in terms of terrorism resulting from such fanaticism.

[skepticscott]

39. YOU named that requirement, not me, kwass

So stuff that nonsense.

And regardless of what "point" you wish you could make this about, it's not what I was responding to. I was responding to the bogus claim that any ideology could inspire people to murderous violence. The claim that only religious ideologies can do so is something I never said, nor did anyone else here, so your insistence on beating that to death just tells me you don't have squat.

[kwassa]

8. No, many were violent criminals before radicalization.

They are the fourth wave of jihadists. ISIS specifically recruits among Muslim prisoners in European prisons. These are young men with a track record.

I read a great analysis of the history of this last week, either in WaPo or the NYT. This is the least religiously-based group of jihadists.

[jonno99]

9. "to get them to " - or, it merely provided an "outlet" for their wanton behavior...nt

[Nitram]

7. I've long suspected that the religious conversion of many of the terrrorists...

...was just a rationalization and cover for political and social anger.

[kwassa]

10. I disagree with Zakaria. They were criminal, not radical.

The politics came later.

[MisterP]

18. they lived in a haze of weed, gay bars, and Friday sex

and that in fact is the crux of the matter: "fighting for Islam" was easily turned into an empty cliche; had they been pious that means they would've had internalized standards/criteria and would thus be motivated by something other than their handler

that was the Beltway's fatal mistake after 9-11: AQ was blamed on them being "too Muslim" against the "moderates" who were defined by not taking Islam too seriously (rather than, y'know, having theology and not being a cult centered around one guy): it was inherent in the revelation of 610 AD, and definitely had nothing to do with constant coups, rampaging hypocrisy, and proxies we told to get more radical and then dumped!

so the "solution" was to get Muslims to stop listening to their ulema and be less concerned with exegetic niceties--it'd be "The Muslim Reformation": too bad we forgot all that happened in the Protestant one ... (I mean, they even vandalized tombs and religious images)

[struggle4progress]

28. Social pressure, and the threat of marginalization, can be quite powerful

Perhaps it can be especially powerful for those who, having been long marginalized, find some temporary acceptance on a social setting that then pressures them to commit horrid acts under threat of otherwise becoming marginalized again

Such mechanisms might explain the psychology of WWII kamikaze pilots, who seem to have been well-treated during their training for their suicide missions

It may also explain Nazi success in recruiting Nazi fanatics from the street-criminal class in the early years of the party: nobodies were offered an opportunity to become somebody