The Decline of the Islamist Murderer

 

Thirteen years ago, we rightly thought of Jihad as typified by the 9-11 attacks. Years in the making, the plot involved scores of people across multiple continents, training camps, and a small fortune. Similarly, the attacks on Bali nightclubs, the London Tube, the Madrid commuter rail, Mumbai hotels, and the Nairobi mall — though all far less spectacular and deadly than their predecessor — were also complicated, planned, and coordinated, often by people with professional training in war and sabotage. Casualties tended to be in the hundreds.

A second kind of Jihadi emerged shortly thereafter: the lone wolf with Western citizenship who plans his attacks without the coordination, resources, and numbers available to the semi-professionals. The Tsarnaev brothers’ bombing of the Boston Marathon was premeditated and long-coming, but they lacked the resources and smarts to have thought much beyond their once-off attack. The DC snipers, Major Hasan, Faisal Shahzad, and a few others also fit into this category of planned terrorism inspired by al Qaeda, but not directed by it or its cells. Casualties tended to be in the dozens.

In recent months a third category seems to have emerged: a petty criminal — usually with a history of mental illness — latches onto violent Islam and soon after makes a poorly-planned, intimately violent, and (usually) suicidal attack that kills a handful of people. Both of the murders in Canada this week fit the bill, as does the beheading in Oklahoma last month. Casualties are usually countable on a single hand.

But while Islamism is undoubtedly the proximate cause for these kinds of murder, they more closely resemble the kind of spree shootings we get from time to time than anything else: the prevalence of mental illness, their copy-cat nature, the disinterest in anything besides going out in a blood orgy — however small and (relatively) ineffective it may be. Indeed, if current reports are true, it seems quite possible that Michael Abdul Zehaf-Bibeau would have had a reasonable chance of assassinating Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had he not first murdered Cpl. Cirillo across the street.

Why Islamists have been so incompetent of late is a good question. Undoubtedly, it’s a confluence of factors: the conflicts in the Middle East have attracted many who might otherwise attack us here; our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq took the fight to them; our intelligence and law enforcement services have likely foiled domestic plots; and our drone programs continue to pick off their leaders and deny them safe haven.

It’s also worth noting the great limitations of their preferred tactics. The best thing about suicide terrorists is that, the more competent the attackers, the less likely they are to bother us again. Moreover, Islamists’ interest in spectacle seems to cloud their judgement; as we’ve all seen countless times in the past 13 years, there are a lot of smart things a terrorist could easily do that would cause tremendous damage to the West that Islamists — even the smartest, most dangerous kind — aren’t interested in doing.

But it does say something grimly reassuring that Islamist attacks have — albeit inconsistently — degraded from something committed by semi-professional saboteurs, to the work of lone-wolf psychopaths, and now, seemingly, to the spasms of deranged sociopaths.

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  1. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    There’s also the factor that increased security and proactive law enforcement activities really do hinder the ability of terrorists to co-ordinate grand schemes without being caught before they can put their plans into action.

    However, no amount of security or law enforcement short of turning our society into a police state (and probably not even then) can ever protect us completely from lone criminals acting with the benefit of surprise.

    Think about the fact that the sole victim killed yesterday was an armed soldier. He had no time to defend himself. (It has since come to light that their C-7 rifles were not loaded.)

    Attacks are part of the new normal. That’s simply a fact we have to endure and accept. The fact that the body count is kept so low is a tribute to the efforts of law-enforcement, the military, and other security forces.

    • #1
  2. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    Tom,

    As the attacks on the body of Western Civilization have been decreasing in magnitude (at least in their effects), the attacks on the soul of Westen Civilization have continued to ramp up.  The stink of revisionist history wafts through the school system down to kindergarten.  We undermine completely the value of western heterosexual monogamy.  While Lena Dunham makes a career out of manufacturing imaginary rape by white christian republican males, the wholesale rape, torture, and murder of women in Islam is simply off limits to criticism.

    While we allow the endless drumbeat of anti-colonialist Marxist-Leninist ideology access to the mainstream of intellectual life, the real HEART OF DARKNESS isn’t even addressed.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #2
  3. virgil15marlow@yahoo.com Coolidge
    virgil15marlow@yahoo.com
    @Manny

    That’s a good observation.  There has been a decline in their capability.  First let’s give the Bush administration credit for all the safe guards they put in place.  Second, I think a number of their most daring and competant terrorists have been killed on the battle field.  The Iraq and Afghan wars attracted these Jihadists from across the world and through our military have met their 72 virgins.  That’s another reason we need to engage ISIS in Syria and Iraq.  Instead of trying to hunt these characters down across the world, let’s arrange a meeting to take place between our military and theirs.  I think the encounter works in our favor.

    • #3
  4. civil westman Inactive
    civil westman
    @user_646399

    Back in 2008, Amir Tahiri wrote “Al Quaeda’s Plan B.” This presciently described events which have been and are transpiring.

    Note that one of the responses of the Canadian government is to tell its military to avoid wearing uniforms. That sends quite a message of cowardice. It also suggests that maybe civilians rather than soldiers will be targeted. Small comfort.

    Obviously, police cannot be everywhere and protect everyone. When all is said and done, we once again learn that the final line of defense when the front lines are everywhere is ourselves. Speaking of prescience and understanding this immutable principle, the Founders contemplated an armed militia of all the able-bodied (men, in those days). It just may be that the utility of such a militia is an idea whose time has not yet passed.

    • #4
  5. user_138562 Moderator
    user_138562
    @RandyWeivoda

    Tom, you’ve written a good and thoughtful article on a serious subject, so I should not be thinking whimsical thoughts.  However . . . It makes me imagine a Jihadist retirement home where old bearded men – probably missing eyes, hands, whatever – are sitting in rocking chairs complaining about how the young terrorists of today just aren’t as professional any more.  Dang whippersnappers.

    • #5
  6. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    civil westman: Note that one of the responses of the Canadian government is to tell its military to avoid wearing uniforms. That sends quite a message of cowardice. It also suggests that maybe civilians rather than soldiers will be targeted. Small comfort.

    Just to clarify, it looks like that has not been a blanket order across the nation. The order has gone out from some base commanders, but not others.

    • #6
  7. virgil15marlow@yahoo.com Coolidge
    virgil15marlow@yahoo.com
    @Manny

    The stoning of that poor woman turns my stomach.  What a f’d up religion.

    • #7
  8. Carver Inactive
    Carver
    @Carver

    Randy,

    Anything as obtusely ridiculous as “Jihad” is fair game for satire in any conversation. The foot soldiers of the Jihad are inherently stupid people who are probably just as dangerous to themselves just walking around as they are on their missions. Think Richard Reed (the shoe bomber), and “The Underwear Bomber”. I imagine the master minds, on sending the next young dupes out the door, might snicker and say, “Don’t pool a Rreechard Rreed” or “when your balls are on fire you are just one minute away from paradise”. Public satire aimed at their stupidity is a great strategy to quell the potential copy cats and is not disrespectful of victims.

    • #8
  9. She Member
    She
    @She

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:In recent months a third category seems to have emerged: a petty criminal — usually with a history of mental illness — latches onto violent Islam and soon after makes a poorly-planned, intimately violent, and (usually) suicidal attack that kills a handful of people. Both of the murders in Canada this week fit the bill, as does the beheading in Oklahoma last month. Casualties are usually countable on a single hand.

    But it does say something grimly reassuring that Islamist attacks have — albeit inconsistently — degraded from something committed by semi-professional saboteurs, to the work of lone-wolf psychopaths, and now, seemingly, to the spasms of deranged sociopaths.

    I think you are right in saying that many of these ‘recent converts to Islam’ are mentally ill.  And I think that there are many things about that Islam that appeal to the mentally ill, particularly those with a chronic condition.

    Note well, I am not saying that all Muslims are mentally ill.  That is certainly not the case.

    But I would guess that a sizable proportion of the rather large lunatic fringe, homegrown or native, is so, in fact, as well as in law.

    And a positive outcome of the current mess would be for folks here at home to take a closer look at the existing laws governing the care of the mentally ill, and for us to start to pay more attention to, and take better care of, those who suffer from these conditions.

    Would it solve the entire problem?  No.  Would it help?  Probably.  Would the lives of the mentally ill and their families improve?  Without question.

    PS–I’m not reassured.  What you’re describing are random attacks perpetrated more-or-less spontaneously, requiring no special skill or tools other than murderous rage and a readily-available weapon, that can break out in any city, town, village or rural field anywhere in the country.  Yes, it’s terrorism.  We need to believe these lunatics when they say they are ‘coming for us.’  And we need to stop closing our eyes and sticking our fingers in our ears, and going “LALALALA, I can’t hear you . . . . “

    • #9
  10. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    She: But I would guess that a sizable proportion of the rather large lunatic fringe, homegrown or native, is so, in fact, as well as in law. And a positive outcome of the current mess would be for folks here at home to take a closer look at the existing laws governing the care of the mentally ill, and for us to start to pay more attention to, and take better care of, those who suffer from these conditions. Would it solve the entire problem? No. Would it help? Probably. Would the lives of the mentally ill and their families improve? Without question.

    According to reports, the gunman was spending his nights at a downtown homeless shelter, a place where mental illness is common among residents.

    One might ask where he was storing his firearm during his residence there.

    • #10
  11. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    Randy Weivoda: However . . . It makes me imagine a Jihadist retirement home where old bearded men – probably missing eyes, hands, whatever – are sitting in rocking chairs complaining about how the young terrorists of today just aren’t as professional any more.  Dang whippersnappers.

    Which is hilarious, except I don’t think there are too many geriatric homes for suicide bombers. :)

    • #11
  12. AIG Inactive
    AIG
    @AIG

    If you’ll note, almost all of AQ and ISIS recruits to carry out attacks in the West are…home grown. Obviously, someone born or raised in the US or some Western country, converting to a radical ideology, isn’t going to be the brightest bulb in the bunch.

    I’d say the primary responsibility for what you have described is that not only the US intelligence agencies and military have been picking them off for years, but also most of the world’s (if not all of the world’s) intelligence agencies and militaries have been doing the same.

    No one knows how many tens of thousands of these people have ended up rotting in some jail cell in Saudi Arabia or Jordan, never to be heard from again.

    Or…it might just be the clam before the storm. It’s surprising just how popular ISIS has become among the radicalized Muslim youth in Western Europe. That’s the biggest concern, in my view.

    PS: Of course, we’ve seen the same thing happen in Israel too. The terrorists don’t seem to be able to stage the same sort of attacks they did before. The ideology may still be there, but the means can be taken away.

    • #12
  13. gts109 Inactive
    gts109
    @gts109

    Were the DC sniper(s) really motivated by extremist Islam? That’s news to me.

    Agree with your analysis completely.

    • #13
  14. user_656019 Coolidge
    user_656019
    @RayKujawa

    Worth discussion. Does the religion of recent converts drive their violent behavior, or do they arrive at their religion by virtue of it being tolerant of any violent predispositions they already have? If the latter, that could explain the drop off in quality of this category of murderer. OTOH, inciting previously peace loving people to commit murder in service of a perceived religious cause shouldn’t be expected to bring in seasoned recruits. So in either case you wouldn’t expect high quality.

    • #14
  15. She Member
    She
    @She

    Ray Kujawa:Worth discussion. Does the religion of recent converts drive their violent behavior, or do they arrive at their religion by virtue of it being tolerant of any violent predispositions they already have? If the latter, that could explain the drop off in quality of this category of murderer. OTOH, inciting previously peace loving people to commit murder in service of a perceived religious cause shouldn’t be expected to bring in seasoned recruits. So in either case you wouldn’t expect high quality.

    The first part of your comment, posing the chicken and egg question, is quite interesting.  But I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘dropoff in quality of this category of murderer.’  Is it that the people that they kill are less dead?  That they kill fewer people?  That the people who are dead are not victims of ‘real’ terrorists? That these murderers are not part of an organized brigade (like the IRA, which terrorized Britain for decades, a few dead people here, and a few dead people there, until hundreds were dead and thousands were injured)?

    I think terrorism is terrorism, and murder is murder, whether it’s committed by a bevy of goons flying aircraft, and thousands of people, into buildings, or whether it’s committed by a ‘lone wolf’ (from what Mark Steyn calls “The Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves,”), with a knife, a gun, or a car, on Main Street, in Anytown, USA.  The point of it is to unsettle us, and make us afraid to live normal lives.

    And it will do that.  Especially if we’re already so scared that we can’t even call it what it is.

    • #15
  16. Devereaux Inactive
    Devereaux
    @Devereaux

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    Randy Weivoda: However . . . It makes me imagine a Jihadist retirement home where old bearded men – probably missing eyes, hands, whatever – are sitting in rocking chairs complaining about how the young terrorists of today just aren’t as professional any more. Dang whippersnappers.

    Which is hilarious, except I don’t think there are too many geriatric homes for suicide bombers. :)

    Think Jeff Dunham’s Ahmed the Dead Terrorist

    • #16
  17. user_656019 Coolidge
    user_656019
    @RayKujawa

    She:

    Ray Kujawa:Worth discussion. Does the religion of recent converts drive their violent behavior, or do they arrive at their religion by virtue of it being tolerant of any violent predispositions they already have? If the latter, that could explain the drop off in quality of this category of murderer. OTOH, inciting previously peace loving people to commit murder in service of a perceived religious cause shouldn’t be expected to bring in seasoned recruits. So in either case you wouldn’t expect high quality.

    The first part of your comment, posing the chicken and egg question, is quite interesting. But I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘dropoff in quality of this category of murderer.’ Is it that the people that they kill are less dead? That they kill fewer people? That the people who are dead are not victims of ‘real’ terrorists? That these murderers are not part of an organized brigade (like the IRA, which terrorized Britain for decades, a few dead people here, and a few dead people there, until hundreds were dead and thousands were injured)?

    I think terrorism is terrorism, and murder is murder, whether it’s committed by a bevy of goons flying aircraft, and thousands of people, into buildings, or whether it’s committed by a ‘lone wolf’ (from what Mark Steyn calls “The Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves,”), with a knife, a gun, or a car, on Main Street, in Anytown, USA. The point of it is to unsettle us, and make us afraid to live normal lives.

    And it will do that. Especially if we’re already so scared that we can’t even call it what it is.

    It was Tom who proposed a this discussion of  downfall or decline among terrorists. Quality of murderer doesn’t equate to the quality of dead. Dead is an absolute. Some of your points seem argumentative. I refer you to the post. Tom posited a kind of evolution in terrorist community that might put some of us at relative ease compared to what the terrorists want us to think. Yes, they seem to be coming directly into our communities, which is definitely frighening, but because they’re more of the lone wolf variety, maybe the threat is more containable in Western societies. At least that’s the point I gather.

    The point isn’t to convince ourselves to be blissfully unaware of the dangers, now that they appear to be closing in on us. The point is that we be armed with knowledge and foresight and work together to defeat terrorism if it should come into our communities. Remember, the terrorists would like everyone to become unsettled, afraid to live a normal life, to go hide and abandon society to them. It will not help the rest of us if you go into your secure bunker and lock the door. We need you to have courage and be strong. I’m coming to terms with it now for several years. At this time, I do have a permit but I am still not armed. But I realize that I do not need to be armed to conquer my fear.

    • #17
  18. user_656019 Coolidge
    user_656019
    @RayKujawa

    I don’t know if this is a stupid thought or not: Are libertarians capable of living in a society that is threatened by violent extremism from without? If I have to go into a foxhole in my own country, I’m thinking I’d rather have a conservative with me (of any stripes) there rather than a libertarian.

    • #18
  19. AIG Inactive
    AIG
    @AIG

    Ray Kujawa: Yes, they seem to be coming directly into our communities, which is definitely frighening, but because they’re more of the lone wolf variety, maybe the threat is more containable in Western societies. At least that’s the point I gather.

    Seems to me the threat is coming “from” these communities, than “to” them. ISIS seems to have attracted a lot of foreign fighters, mostly from Western Europe, and mostly from people who were born or raised there.

    Most of these attacks in the West also seem to be from such people.

    Looking at the poll numbers on the favorability of ISIS in Western Europe, one can become shocked (I think one poll showed 27% of young “French” view ISIS in a favorable light). Of course, when we say “French” of “British”, we’re talking about transplants from Arab or Central Asian countries, but people who were born and raised there nonetheless.

    And it doesn’t seem like they are making any secret about their extremism. Mosques from Berlin or London put up their sermons filled with praise for terrorism, with no apparent repercussions.

    I have no idea what to make of this. But it seems to me to the biggest problem, rather than what these lunatics do in the ME itself.

    • #19
  20. Marley's Ghost Coolidge
    Marley's Ghost
    @MarleysGhost

    AIG:

    Ray Kujawa: Yes, they seem to be coming directly into our communities, which is definitely frighening, but because they’re more of the lone wolf variety, maybe the threat is more containable in Western societies. At least that’s the point I gather.
    Seems to me the threat is coming “from” these communities, than “to” them. ISIS seems to have attracted a lot of foreign fighters, mostly from Western Europe, and mostly from people who were born or raised there.

    Most of these attacks in the West also seem to be from such people.

    I think it is a misnomer to refer to the individuals flocking to ISIS as “homegrown.”  Though there are a number of what I will call Westerners, the people coming from Europe are first and second generation immigrants from the very parts of the globe where radical Islamism started.  They have grown up in Western countries, born there, and benefited from the lifestyle but were also reared to hate it, to condemn it’s freedoms and to be disdainful of the inhabitants.  Hardly “homegrown” in the traditional sense.  They were, as Barack Obama might say, “spies behind enemy lines,” though of course he meant being a socialist in the capitalist world, the concept remains the same.

    • #20
  21. She Member
    She
    @She

    Ray Kujawa:

    It was Tom who proposed a this discussion of downfall or decline among terrorists. Quality of murderer doesn’t equate to the quality of dead. Dead is an absolute. Some of your points seem argumentative. I refer you to the post. Tom posited a kind of evolution in terrorist community that might put some of us at relative ease compared to what the terrorists want us to think. Yes, they seem to be coming directly into our communities, which is definitely frighening, but because they’re more of the lone wolf variety, maybe the threat is more containable in Western societies. At least that’s the point I gather.

    The point isn’t to convince ourselves to be blissfully unaware of the dangers, now that they appear to be closing in on us. The point is that we be armed with knowledge and foresight and work together to defeat terrorism if it should come into our communities. Remember, the terrorists would like everyone to become unsettled, afraid to live a normal life, to go hide and abandon society to them. It will not help the rest of us if you go into your secure bunker and lock the door. We need you to have courage and be strong. I’m coming to terms with it now for several years. At this time, I do have a permit but I am still not armed. But I realize that I do not need to be armed to conquer my fear.

    I know what Tom proposed, and I responded to him earlier (#9).

    But in the comment you cite here, I was referring to your words, specifically.

    I’m not sure what you mean by framing a comment that asked for clarification on your point as ‘argumentative.’  That’s not what the word means to me.

    I do not much believe in the ‘Lone Wolf’ theory.  I do believe in the “Crazy, Bad Actor” theory.  But I do not believe the impetus for these crazy, bad acts is springing full-grown, all by itself, out of the heads of these murderous lunatics.  I think it’s planted there by Not Lone Wolves, Islamist leaders either in the Middle East, or more likely, at the local mosque (as is the case all over England at the moment).

    And no matter if the terrorist force encompasses dozens, or just an army of one, and no matter the method that is used to terrorize both the victims and ourselves, or the number of victims of each attack, I find all terrorists exactly equal in one respect.

    They are all equally evil.  There is no decline, degradation, diminution of quality or any other measure that we should use to discriminate one from the other.

    If that’s the part you find ‘argumentative, so be it.

    I also do not subscribe to the idea that the ‘Lone Wolf’ is reassuringly containable in Western societies.  We have a hard enough time rounding up homicidal ‘Lone Wolf’ nutjobs whose background and culture we ostensibly share and understand, never mind those who are acting in ways, and out of motives, utterly beyond our ken.

    I have no intention of convincing myself to be “blissfully unaware,” or to “go into my secure bunker and lock the door,” and I’m not sure what your point is if you are speaking to me directly.  If you’re interpreting Tom’s post for me, I think you’re not exactly reflecting what he said.  Tom describes, with some accuracy, the different types and stages of terrorist activity that we’ve observed, and says he finds certain things ‘grimly reassuring’ about the current threats.  He does not extrapolate his conclusion and say that others must also be reassured.

    And although I agree with much of his post, I am not reassured.

    Lastly, you do not need to remind me that the terrorists ‘would like everyone to become unsettled, afraid to live a normal life,’ etc.  In fact, when you say that, you’re pretty much quoting me directly.  So we apparently agree on that, at least.

    • #21
  22. civil westman Inactive
    civil westman
    @user_646399

    In law, conspiracy is regarded as malum in se. This results from recognition that a group acting in concert amplifies the consequences of evil acts beyond those which individuals can accomplish. Conspiracy – involving a group of any size – is far more dangerous thus more legally and practically culpable.

    History suggests that conquest and conflict along it borders are emblematic of Islam. Three pertinent things have changed, however. First, emigration from Muslim countries to the West has provided a potential fifth column. Second, anonymous internet spread of propaganda/ideology recruits adherents from anywhere, and  third, the technology of destructive weapons. For the first time in history, a small group of individuals (with surreptitious financial support of state actors) is capable of enlisting adherents and killing thousands, if not more.

    I take no comfort in the fact that, for the moment, Islamist killing in the West is isolated and perpetrated by individuals. Both history and today’s adherents have told us that this is a long fight to the death. The present nature of individual violence by no means rules out ongoing efforts of groups to inflict almost unimaginable organized destruction. Remember that much of anti-terrorism is aimed at intercepting communication among conspirators. Such efforts have likely made communication slower and more difficult but have not eliminated them. Conspiracies to kill large numbers of us are undoubtedly ongoing.

    • #22
  23. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    She: Tom describes, with some accuracy, the different types and stages of terrorist activity that we’ve observed, and says he finds certain things ‘grimly reassuring’ about the current threats.  He does not extrapolate his conclusion and say that others must also be reassured. And although I agree with much of his post, I am not reassured.

    While I’m certainly in no position to tell someone how they should feel, I do think there’s some cause for reassurance in the (general) decline in the quality of Islamic murderer.

    Semi-professional, well-trained Jihadis like those who can plan and carry out big attacks with some degree of competence are genuinely frightening; the good news is that there are fewer of these, partially because of our foreign policy, partially because of our surveillance, and partially because the nature of these attacks makes them very hard to sustain.

    Lone wolves and occasional nuts jobs are probably just as evil, but they’re not as good at doing evil as the professional Jihadis. That doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to them, or that their victims are any less dead, only that there may be less victims to bury and console.

    • #23
  24. virgil15marlow@yahoo.com Coolidge
    virgil15marlow@yahoo.com
    @Manny
    Randy Weivoda

    Tom, you’ve written a good and thoughtful article on a serious subject, so I should not be thinking whimsical thoughts. However . . . It makes me imagine a Jihadist retirement home where old bearded men – probably missing eyes, hands, whatever – are sitting in rocking chairs complaining about how the young terrorists of today just aren’t as professional any more. Dang whippersnappers.

    Don’t we call that place Guantanamo?  ;)

    • #24
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