talking terrorism at the office water cooler

The most notable side-effect of September 11th was that it brought discussions about terrorism, and the government's role in preventing it, straight to the office water cooler. John and Jane Q. Public now participate in terrorism talk (for good or for bad). Unfortunately this leads to misconceptions about terrorism... and wildly inaccurate assumptions about 'what is a terrorist', 'why do they hate us', and 'what is the most effective way of dealing with it'? All of these are important questions, though the answers aren't as easy as John and Jane might think, primarily because these water cooler discussions are founded on false assumtions. Understanding Terror Networks should be required reading for those who think they have all the answers. Written by former foreign service officer Marc Sageman (9/11 Commission testimony), this book seeks to dispell much of the rhetoric about Al Qaeda and sticks to the facts. The most disturbing byproduct of everyman's inclusion in terrorism discussions is that it often leads to heightened fears... to the extent that they too think they might become victims of the next attack. And overt racism against Muslims in general is no laughing matter either. These irrational notions guide our discussions and motivate our actions. They lead average Americans to expect unreasonable measures from their government. They also rationalize and lead to acceptance of a government that is not-so-slowly but surely becoming more secretive, more intrusive, and less an instrument of the will of the people. If for no other reason than to re-frame the debate about Al Qaeda and terrorism in general, I hope that everyone reads this book. Despite what John and Jane might think, we don't need to kill tens of thousands of Iraqis to bring down Al Qaeda, as that has quite the opposite effect on the safety of American citizens. Here are some of Sageman's most notable conclusions:

* Since we can dispose of the usual "root cause" explanations for why people become terrorists (poverty, lack of education, etc.), we don't have to depend on large societal transformations to turn the spigot of Al Qaeda recruits down or off. In other words, we don't have to remake the Middle East to defeat Al Qaeda. * The "quiet period" between 9/11 and today, absent further direct attacks against US targets, is no surprise. Al Qaeda is clever and resourceful, but it is also small and, in some key ways, vulnerable. For example, Al Qaeda leaders did not anticipate the speed and ferocity with which the USA invaded Afghanistan with its NATO allies only a few weeks later. Forcing Al Qaeda to lose its Afghan base of operations did hurt, but it did not prevent the organization from mobilizing its resources for attacks. Those assets were merely directed at different targets, such as the "3/11" attack in Spain. * The different parts of the network operate with a great deal of independence and initiative, so the Afghan invasion would not have stopped the 3/11 attack in Spain from happening. * Al Qaeda is not a big organization, and it requires months or years to plan and execute attacks. There are not hordes of terrorists slipping over our borders, but we would be foolish to ignore the ones who genuinely may be out there. * We have to be careful about how our own missteps can help Al Qaeda. From a pure counterterrorism standpoint, the Iraq invasion is a complete disaster. The Al Qaeda network is now bigger, with new "clusters" such as the al-Zarqawi group, Al Qaeda of Iraq. It also has a new stage on which to play out, for a global audience, the mythology and demonology of their brand of Salafist resistance. * Assuming the Al Qaeda organization doesn't continue to grow at this pace, the overall size of Al Qaeda is still relatively smaller than most people realize. Once the United States leaves Iraq, most of the violent energies once directed against us will stay in Iraq. * A conventional military approach to counterterrorism, focusing on the geographic locations of terrorist camps or the regimes of supposed terrorist patrons, will not destroy Al Qaeda. Unraveling the network of associations, tracking down individual terrorists, and eliminating them as threats is the only way to defeat Al Qaeda. * There is practically no likelihood, therefore, that the large numbers of people we have detained post-9/11 from Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere have any information that will help unravel Al Qaeda. Once again, Al Qaeda is a very small terrorist network, not a Maoist-style guerrilla organization. We are fighting a counterinsurgency war in Iraq, but you have to unravel that conflict from Al Qaeda's global operations. Al Qaeda may be using the Iraq insurgency for its own purposes, and some members of the Al Qaeda network are responsible for attacks on US, Coalition, and Iraqi targets. However, these are the exception that defines the rule. The vast majority of the people shooting at Americans in Iraq are not members of Al Qaeda, nor do they share its ideology and objectives. * In the political sphere, where we are trying to steer people away from supporting or joining Al Qaeda, half measures are worse than doing nothing at all. Al Qaeda's chief message is, "Those who claim to speak for God, or who say that there is a separate sphere of sovereignty away from the commandments of the Koran and the Hadith Reports, are either corrupt or stupid. Judge for yourself by their actions and their results." If we set up our allies or ourselves for failure, such as we have done with our inattention to "finishing the job" in Afghanistan, we should not be shocked if Al Qaeda benefits from the ensuing disappointment and outrage.

read more here.