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Loading... What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat (edition 2007)by Louise Richardson
Work InformationWhat Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat by Louise Richardson
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This amazingly brief compendium of what we know about terrorists and terrorism ends with a to my mind very accurate critique of U.S. policies and actions to address terrorism since September 2001 and then a set of six rules and suggestions to more effectively handle terrorism. Dr. Richardson writes in a fluent style, has been researching and analyzing terrorism for a long time, and is clear about her biases. Highly recommended. ( ) "What Terrorists Want" provides a valuable academic perspective on the history and anatomy of terrorism as a social, political and military phenomenon. Relatively free of ideological posturing, Louise Richardson's analysis cites examples of terrorists movements from the middle ages through the Iraq War, across a variety of religious (and secular) traditions, and draws thereby a host of salient conclusions about the prominent motivations behind terrorist action. Along the way, she handily refutes the most common (and durable) misconceptions about terrorism generally; i.e., that it is a symptom of psychological disfunction, religious indoctrination, or the verities of disaffection, poverty or naïveté. The latter part of the book tends to get sidetracked by the political issues and controversies of the Iraq War and the policies of George W. Bush. As the first edition was published in 2006, this is perhaps excusable to some degree, but it tends to diminish the timelessness of her central points. (It can be reasonably argued that U.S. foreign policy is subject to a cornucopia of non-counterterrorism-related influences, and any serious critique of same should at least make an attempt to acknowledge this.) The essential correctness, however, of her central thesis about terrorism is well able to withstand scrutiny. In the final analysis, Richardson gives a clear, focused and infuriating account of why terrorism is adopted as a tactic of psychological warfare and how the inability or unwillingness to acknowledge its underlying social mechanics threatens us all. no reviews | add a review
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"After defining - once and for all - what terrorism is, Richardson explores its origins, its goals, what's to come, and what is to be done about it. Richardson understands that terrorists are neither insane nor amoral. Rather, they are rational political actors who often deploy carefully calibrated tactics in a measured and reasoned way. What is more, they invariably go to great lengths to justify their actions to themselves, their followers, and, often, the world." "Richardson shows that the nature of terrorism did not change after the attacks of September 11, 2001; what changed was our response. She argues that the Bush administration's "global war on terror" was doomed to fail because of an ignorance of history, a refusal to learn from the experience of other governments, and a fundamental misconception about how and why terrorists act. As an alternative, Richardson offers a feasible strategy for containing the terrorist threat and cutting off its grassroots support."--BOOK JACKET. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)363.325Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Other social problems and services Other Public Safety Concerns Terrorism and security TerrorismLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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