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Book Review - "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill" by Jessica Stern

Scott D. O'Reilly - 4/4/2006

For a growing portion of humanity the United States is, to borrow a line from Melville's Moby Dick, "the incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them." The tidal wave of Globalization, the cultural disruptions left in Modernity's wake, and the perceived indifference of the United States to the developing world's plight have created an undercurrent of anguish, resentment and hostility most Americans barely fathom. Terrorists see themselves as "Fate's Lieutenant," God's instrument here on earth, charged with vanquishing the source of their bottomless ire. When one is enlisted in the Army of God flying planes into skyscrapers, acquiring weapons of mass destruction, or slaughtering innocent civilians is hardly beyond the pale, since everyone on the other side is seen as an infidel. Such is alarming mindset of the subjects encountered in Jessica Stern's book "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill."

Jessica Stern, who teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is one of the country's leading experts on terrorism. As the United States confronts the enormous challenge of militant Islam, and as questions are beginning to emerge regarding the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror, Stern's insight - drawn from numerous personal encounters with terrorists and religious militants - is invaluable.

After 9/11 it became rather unfashionable to talk about 'the roots of terrorism.' Thinkers who discussed terrorism in terms of 'blowback,' ecological terms, third world poverty, and possible U.S. culpability were browbeaten by conservative pundits. The task at hand was to hunt the terrorists down so that "they are no longer a problem," to use Bush's vernacular. The administration's critics were dismissed as appeasers who probably believed that terrorists just needed therapy. Stern, thankfully, avoids any simplistic ideological dispositions, and instead portrays global terrorism as complex and insidious problem that requires a thoughtful and farsighted response, and certainly something more than just the one-dimensional military approach pursued by the Bush administration. Indeed, Stern provides compelling arguments to suggest that the administration's policies are likely to exacerbate the threat of terrorism because they disregard factors that breed terrorists in the first place.

Stern has spent an enormous amount of face time meeting with terrorists, including interviews with Al-Qaeda operatives, Islamic militants, as well as Christian and Jewish radicals that espouse violence. Stern manages to hone in on a number of themes that seem to be associated with their propensity towards terrorist violence. Perhaps the most fundamental of these common motifs is the notion that only through bloodshed can the world be cleansed of impurities, evil, and injustice. Whether Stern is interviewing Islamic militants, Jewish extremists, or radical Christians, one recognizes that her subjects are keenly affected by the sense - as the philosopher Sartre called it - that there is "a hole in the world." In the eyes of Islamic militants Globalization and a decadent West threaten to wipe out Islamic culture leaving susceptible adherents with the feeling that only violent resistance - terrorist violence - can counter the threat that the secular West presents. What Stern's discussions reveal time and again, is the blithe certainty of her subjects, their sincere desire to convert interlocutors -- like Stern -- to their point of view, and the almost unassailable immunity to irony her subjects possess, many of whom who would sanction almost any means - poisoning a major water supply, for instance - in order to further their apocalyptic agenda.

Stern recognizes that religious zealotry, however, is not the only component of terrorism. Indeed, in many cases terrorist organizations are more secular and worldly than most realize - often resembling Western style Mafias. For instance, what begin as religiously inspired resistance organizations often morph into criminal enterprises with those at the top of the hierarchy reaping financial benefits while exploiting the religious zealotry of their less educated foot soldiers. Stern describes a number of organizational models that terrorists utilize. Simplest is the hierarchical structure common among nearly all legitimate military organizations. These are usually the most potent terrorist organization but are also the simplest to confront and defeat, since cutting off the head tends to render the body useless. Prior to 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan this was largely the form that Al-Qaeda took, though Al-Qaeda 2.0 has since morphed into "leaderless resistance" model that although less capable of executing spectacular terror attacks can be more insidious and difficult to defeat. Leaderless terror organizations consists of isolated cells that have little or no awareness of each other, plan their operations independently, but draw their inspiration from a charismatic figure - such as bin Laden - who remains aloof and disengaged from specific planning.

Terror organizations rely on a complex array of funding sources including: charitable donations, drug and arms rings, assorted criminal enterprises, legitimate business activities, and even speculation in the stock market. In short, they utilize the very openness and institutions of Western society that they claim to abhor. It is indeed a perverse irony that terrorists seek to exploit the communication and financial systems that are spreading globalization to stop the process of globalization. Stern's most valuable chapter relates how terrorists seek to exploit the West's very strengths against itself to spread fear in an attempt to demoralize civilians - to instill in Western citizens the same sense of anomie that most of these marginalized and socially outcast terrorists themselves feel.

But Stern is convinced that the terrorists are vulnerable too, that there are specific steps society can take to defuse the appeal terrorism holds for certain subjects. In Stern's view most terrorists begin with an apocalyptic vision in which "cleansing" the world of impurity propels the terrorist into state of religious intoxication. In such a state, Stern writes, "The weak become strong. The selfish become altruists . . . rage turns into conviction. What seems to happen is that they seem to enter a trance, where the world is divided neatly between good and evil, victim and oppressor . . . They believe that God is on their side." That through violence, they can end their humiliation.

Stern argues that we in the West have to realize that the benefits of Globalization have not been widely dispersed, that a large segment of humanity has been left behind. The success of the first world is a continual reminder to members of the third world of their deprived condition and the inadequacy of their economic and social systems to meet the challenges posed by modernity. In this regard, terrorism is a three-dimensional challenge, and military operations that succeed on one level may actually undermine progress on other levels. The Bush administration, in other words, may succeed in cutting of the branches of the terrorist tree, while inadvertently nourishing its roots. On the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq, for instance, one cannot underestimate the provocation that U.S troops occupying the heart of a humiliated Arab world is likely stir up among Islamic radicals. By pursuing a unilateral approach to Iraq the United States has set itself up as the focal point of the Third World's ire. By disregarding international law and the court of world opinion we have provided a large portion of humanity another reason to resent us.

There are, of course, other factors -- demographic and cultural - that almost certainly promote terrorism. In many Arab countries, for instance, more than fifty percent of the population consists of teenagers, and women are not allowed to participate in civil and political life. Such factors tend to serve as a brake on social and economic progress. Stern mentions these factors only in passing, but they deserve greater elaboration. Expanding the stake the marginalized and disenfranchised have in global prosperity is one way to defuse any sense that terrorists represent the oppressed.

Stern argues that religious zealotry is an essential component of terrorism. But rather than write her subjects off as fanatics Stern makes great efforts to empathize with her subjects so she can imagine the world from their point of view. After reading Stern's interviews I have little doubt that for many of her subjects a religious instinct has been hijacked for toxic ends. Stern's subjects fervently believe that only through violence can the world be cleansed. In Moby Dick Captain Ahab once said, "All of my means are rationale, only my ends are insane." Many of Stern's terror subjects seem to be saying something similar but converse, "my means are wicked, but my ends are noble." For both Ahab and the terrorists their rage has bred powerful delusions. These delusions will not be easy to penetrate or defeat, but recent events such as the invasion of Iraq and the abuses of Abu Ghraib are only likely to reinforce them. The first step in defeating an adversary is to understand them. Enlisting empathy in the war on terror, then, is not a sign of weakness but an imperative since it can allow us to imagine effective counter strategies towards dismantling delusional belief systems.

Stern's book provides other tangible insights for dampening the terrorists' ire: reducing our presence in the Middle East and wielding America's soft power. By living up to our own ideals and values we stand a better chance of being seen as a beacon not a bully, and thus enlisting the support of the majority of moderate Muslims in confronting violent extremists. Reading Stern's thoughtful, informative, and penetrating book is a reminder of how grave the threat of global terrorism is. And more important, it is a lesson that waging a war on terror by military means alone could exacerbate that threat. Since, if in fighting terrorism all we manage to do is to create more spiritual orphans, we shall almost certainly create more terrorists.