chanel
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There are three myths about terrorists that must be corrected if we are to battle terrorism effectively, according to Col. Matt Venhaus: that Muslim youth become terrorists for economic reasons; that they become terrorists primarily for religious reasons; and that they are recruited by al-Qaeda.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, terrorists are not motivated by poverty; they do not turn to violence in a fit of religious fervor; and al-Qaeda does not actively recruit themthey go looking for al-Qaeda, according to Venhaus.
If you understand the phenomenon incorrectly then your solutions going to be wrong, Venhaus said at panel Dec. 2 at the Heritage Foundation on the role of psychological operations (PSYOP) in strategic communication in warfare. Venhaus, currently at the Department of Defense, spent a year interviewing more than 2,000 foreign fighters to determine the reasons young Muslim men were turning to terrorism in such large numbers. In his words, if putting a bomb in your underwear and getting on a plane is the answer, then what in the heck is the question?
Venhaus found that Muslim youth were primarily acting out a need to control their environmenttheir strict Muslim lifestyles gave them few options to vent the pent-up energy bred by such structured, in many cases suffocating, lives.
Our strategy for psychological operations must, therefore, take this information into account, since were fighting two wars in the Muslim world
How Islam Creates Terrorists, and How to Defeat Them
Interesting piece. Comments?