Tête-à-têtes With Terrorists

Talking with militants about God and mass slaughter. A Reason interview

Tim Cavanaugh | August 21, 2003

(Page 2 of 6)

Stern: I think poverty, in and of itself, we pretty clearly can't say is a cause of terrorism. There are many causes. Terrorists are different. Even individuals within a single terrorist organization often have different motivations, and their motivations change over time. I have seen, in some of the poorer countries such as in Pakistan, that some terrorists seem to be doing it for the money. More than one has told me they can't afford to leave their jobs as terrorists.

Reason: Like that guy who wanted you to help him find a publisher so he could transition into a writing career?

Stern: Yeah, he was quite a character. I think he's still alive. We've also seen upper middle class kids join these groups. If I had to say what are the most important elements that are shared across the board, they would have to do with a feeling of humiliation and a desire for a clear identity, more than poverty or lack of education.

But you know, if you look at the macro picture, some econometric studies have shown that low GDP is a pretty good indicator of risk of internal war and terrorism. But I haven't done that. I've only looked at the level of individuals. And at the individual level, poverty plays a role, but not always.

Reason: Christopher Hitchens promotes a term, "Islamo-Fascism," that has gained popularity even though it no descriptive value at all—or at least none that couldn't as easily be expressed by saying "Islamo-Communism," which most people would recognize as silly. Do you think in America we have a very clear popular understanding of the religious-militant threat we're facing, and of what this enemy is like?

Stern: No, I don't think we understand what this enemy is like. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, but it's still puzzling to me.

I think this enemy is about absolute rage. In some cases that rage is about what we are, but it's also about what we do. But the ideology is very chameleon-like. Some of my colleagues say al Qaeda is all about a political objective, and that objective is to force us out of Saudi. They see bin Laden and al Qaeda as rational in the sense of having a rational goal and going after it in the most cost-effective way they can. I don't think that's really true. First of all, their purported objective changes regularly. We saw an attack in Saudi very shortly after the Pentagon announced it was moving almost every soldier out of Saudi. Another big complaint was the sanctions on Iraq, and their effect on children. The ideology at this point is so broad it can bring in a wide variety of extremists because the mission has become opposition to the New World Order.

Reason: The U.S. does a pretty appalling job of advertising itself overseas. Theoretically, we should be able to make a great case for ourselves as a friend of Muslim populations. We put lives and treasure on the line to protect Muslims in the former Yugoslavia. We give a ton of money to Arab countries through USAID. Muslims from all over the world have found peace and prosperity here. Why doesn't any of that sink in?

Stern: Many Pakistani jihadis complained about our ignoring Muslims in various parts of the former Yugoslavia. And once we actually tried to help them, it didn't make much difference. There was another reason to hate the West. There are so many reasons to hate America and the West. We have done, sometimes, very good things, and we're not very good at selling that, it's true. Who should be the next Charlotte Beers I can't say.

Reason: Well how about a Muslim? We aren't even very good at getting people to speak on our behalf.

Stern: We do have a lot of people talking about how great it is to live here, but the common answer to that is, "Of course it's great for Muslims to live in America; the problem is what the United States is doing to Muslims outside America."

One thing that's important is exchange. It's very important for westerners to be regularly exposed to Muslims from south Asia as well as the Middle East. At the moment, when we're making it so hard for people—well, for young men—from Muslim countries to get visas, unfortunately this is the time when it's most important that they be coming to America, and Americans be going there. I have a student who's having trouble getting a visa. Believe it or not, this guy is Jewish, but he comes from Iran. It's hard to get the balance right in terms of how much we want to protect ourselves from terrorist infiltrators and how much we want to have this important exchange.

Reason: Let me reverse that question now: Ultimately, how important is it to understand the motivations and dynamics of these groups? After all, one of the reasons George W. Bush is an effective leader is that he deals with problems in simple terms, without a lot of nuance.

Stern: It's not just George Bush who has that view. As you're probably aware, among people who study terrorism these days there is a big divide between the people who study terrorists and their motivations, and those who concentrate on the weapons. I have heard one person who has a very senior position in the Bush administration talk about how unimportant it is to understand terrorists' motivations. What matters is that they will get access to WMD and we need to do something about it.

I think it is important to understand motivations because we want to understand the potential appeal of this ideology. I don't think we're ever going to persuade hardened terrorists to change their minds by changing our policies—not that I'm recommending changing our policies in response to terrorist complaints. But we can have a very significant impact on those who would become sympathizers. If you look at the popularity of United States in the Arab world, it's frightening how low it's gotten. For those groups to succeed in Morocco and Indonesia and Saudi, they need support. You can't have the terrorists themselves and nobody else; there is a support base. We need to understand the message they're trying to sell. We need to undermine that message—and as you pointed out, we're not very good at undermining it, but we need to try.