Experts Say Bush Administration Misunderstands Terrorist Networks

[ck4829]

According to a new study in Communication Theory, the Bush administration is making critical errors in their anti-terror policy because of false assumptions about how terror networks form and communicate. "The administration's assumptions about these networks are misguided," say study authors Cynthia Stohl and Michael Stohl. "Counterterrorist policies need to focus on connections between and among network groups, not on the basic existence of the groups themselves."

According to the authors, the current administration's policies ignore scholarly theories of how networks function. "Because the Bush administration assumes that there is a cohesive global terror network, rather than recognizing that terror groups greatly differ and are frequently local, every terrorist event anywhere in the world is presented as an al-Qaeda event and thus results in a communication victory handed to Osama Bin Laden. This is short-sighted, ineffective and, ironically, creates the very conditions that generate and maintain terror networks," say the authors.

Stohl and Stohl say that the strength of terror networks do not lie in the number of connections, but on their ability to mobilize and motivate sympathizers. This means that capturing or killing specific terror cells will not stop the network, but may actually strengthen the motivation of the members still operating. "The Bush administration's focus on the "body count" of al-Qaeda members individualizes the problem instead of confronting the processes that produce terrorism."

The study illustrates how the current administration's assumptions that networks are hierarchical, top-down control structures is consistent with past images of terrorist groups such as the Red Brigade and the PLO, where specific leaders and councils defined strategies and local groups carried out order, but this is an outdated model of organization. Scholars today recognize that "networks are dynamic, temporary, emergent, adaptive, entrepreneurial and flexible structures whose boundaries are continually in flux. Policy based on the outdated assumption turns groups with largely local aspirations into ones that share al-Qaeda's global agenda," say the authors.

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/21811/

[tanyev]

1. Ignore scholarly theories? Prefer to believe their own assumptions?

That sounds familiar. The only thing the Bush administration has ever understood is how to manipulate the American psyche. And even that is not working so well anymore.

[jody]

2. The Stohls have a solid theory. Autonomous small groups that use suicide/explosions to advance their

cause draw sustenance from the certain knowledge each group is not alone in its struggle for the basic necessities of life while surrounded by a minority of people and countries who grow more obese from feasting on the earth’s scarce resources.

The small groups motto might be "We die that others might live" and that's a tough idea to fight with conventional military forces.

[SpiralHawk]

3. "We don't believe in no steenkin science." - radical republicon corporo-christo-facists

"There ain't nothing about this shit in the Bible, so we ain't paying any attention. This study is undoubtedly a plot by freedom-loving liberals, so all we can do is get Limbaugh, Hannity, and O'Reilly to pull their $1,000 Gucci loafers on, and trash the hell out of these thinkers. Stamp out thinking. Vote republicon.

"Support Commander AWOL and Dickie Five Military Deferments Cheney as the Great Republicon War Heroes they are."

- radical republicon corporo-christo-facist kool-aid gluggers

[mmonk]

4. Not to mention his failure to hide all ours.

[Demeter]

5. Because Bush Terrorist Networks Are Top-Down Structures

They are incapable of dealing with grass-roots ones (which is why there is a Democratic Underground!)