Thinking Like a Terrorist

Thinking Like a Terrorist PDF Author: Mike German
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597973270
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
As the fifth full year of America's global war on terrorism continues, statistics concerning terrorist attacks show a disturbing trend: from a twenty-one-year high in 2003, attacks tripled in 2004 and then doubled in 2005. And as the incidence of terrorist attacks increased, so has the number of terrorists. While the primary leaders of the Taliban, al Qaeda, and al Qaeda in Iraq remain at large, a 2006 Department of Defense study reportedly identified thirty new al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups that have been created since September 11, 2001. We may not have metrics that measure our success in the war on terrorism, but these realities certainly illuminate our failures. In Thinking Like a Terrorist, former FBI counterterrorism agent Mike German contends that the overarching problem is a fundamental failure to understand the terrorists--namely, what they want and how they intend to get it. When our counterterrorism policies are driven by misunderstanding and misperception, we shouldn't be surprised at the results. Today's terrorists have a real plan--a blueprint that has brought them victory in the past--that they are executing to perfection; moreover, their plan is published and available to anyone who bothers to read it. Once the terrorists' plan is understood, we can develop and implement more effective counterterrorism strategies. A former undercover agent who infiltrated neo-Nazi terrorist groups in the United States, German explains the terrorist's point of view and discusses ways to counter the terrorism threat. Based on his unusual experience in the field, Thinking Like a Terrorist provides unique insights into why terrorism is such a persistent and difficult problem and why the U.S. approach to counterterrorism isn't working.

Thinking Like a Terrorist

Thinking Like a Terrorist PDF Author: Mike German
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597973270
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book Here

Book Description
As the fifth full year of America's global war on terrorism continues, statistics concerning terrorist attacks show a disturbing trend: from a twenty-one-year high in 2003, attacks tripled in 2004 and then doubled in 2005. And as the incidence of terrorist attacks increased, so has the number of terrorists. While the primary leaders of the Taliban, al Qaeda, and al Qaeda in Iraq remain at large, a 2006 Department of Defense study reportedly identified thirty new al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups that have been created since September 11, 2001. We may not have metrics that measure our success in the war on terrorism, but these realities certainly illuminate our failures. In Thinking Like a Terrorist, former FBI counterterrorism agent Mike German contends that the overarching problem is a fundamental failure to understand the terrorists--namely, what they want and how they intend to get it. When our counterterrorism policies are driven by misunderstanding and misperception, we shouldn't be surprised at the results. Today's terrorists have a real plan--a blueprint that has brought them victory in the past--that they are executing to perfection; moreover, their plan is published and available to anyone who bothers to read it. Once the terrorists' plan is understood, we can develop and implement more effective counterterrorism strategies. A former undercover agent who infiltrated neo-Nazi terrorist groups in the United States, German explains the terrorist's point of view and discusses ways to counter the terrorism threat. Based on his unusual experience in the field, Thinking Like a Terrorist provides unique insights into why terrorism is such a persistent and difficult problem and why the U.S. approach to counterterrorism isn't working.

Jihad and American Medicine

Jihad and American Medicine PDF Author: Adam F. Dorin M.D.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0275996387
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
State-of-the-art counter-terrorism techniques, insights into modern medical practice, medical errors, and disaster prevention all intersect in this groundbreaking book by Adam Dorin, M.D., an anesthesiologist and medical director across 15 years. Dr. Dorin shows us why our healthcare system may be the next Ground Zero for terrorism and how many opportunities there are for terrorists to infiltrate the system. He offers a history of medical and healthcare-related serial killers, showing how they got inside the system to murder relatively easily, takes a detailed look at the profound problems that already exist in counterfeit and tainted medicinal products, and describes biological, chemical, and nuclear terrorism that could be used against our healthcare system. Most critically, Dr. Dorin presents a detailed blueprint for safeguarding our system and preventing medical terrorism from ever taking place. In tackling largely hidden but potentially deadly issues such as the failures of security at hospitals and surgical centers, Dr. Dorin's unique book offers the first in-depth public expose and loud alert to the risks and gaping weak spots in our healthcare system. Written simply and clearly, this work will interest all readers concerned with terrorism and the ways they might become victim to it. Dr. Dorin's warnings should certainly also interest and inform leaders and employees in the security, law enforcement, and medical fields.

Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide

Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide PDF Author: Mike German
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620973804
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Impressively researched and eloquently argued, former special agent Mike German’s Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide tells the story of the transformation of the FBI after the 9/11 attacks from a law enforcement agency, made famous by prosecuting organized crime and corruption in business and government, into arguably the most secretive domestic intelligence agency America has ever seen. German shows how FBI leaders exploited the fear of terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11 to shed the legal constraints imposed on them in the 1970s in the wake of Hoover-era civil rights abuses. Empowered by the Patriot Act and new investigative guidelines, the bureau resurrected a discredited theory of terrorist “radicalization” and adopted a “disruption strategy” that targeted Muslims, foreigners, and communities of color, and tarred dissidents inside and outside the bureau as security threats, dividing American communities against one another. By prioritizing its national security missions over its law enforcement mission, the FBI undermined public confidence in justice and the rule of law. Its failure to include racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and xenophobic violence committed by white nationalists within its counterterrorism mandate only increased the perception that the FBI was protecting the powerful at the expense of the powerless. Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide is an engaging and unsettling contemporary history of the FBI and a bold call for reform, told by a longtime counterterrorism undercover agent who has become a widely admired whistleblower and a critic for civil liberties and accountable government.

American Radical

American Radical PDF Author: Tamer Elnoury
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101986174
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
The explosive New York Times bestselling memoir of a Muslim American FBI agent fighting terror from the inside. A longtime undercover agent, Tamer Elnoury joined an elite counterterrorism unit after September 11, 2001. Its express purpose was to gain the trust of terrorists whose goals were to take out as many Americans in as public and devastating a way as possible. It was a furious race against the clock for Elnoury and his unit to stop them before they could implement their plans. Yet the techniques were as old as time: listen, record, and prove terrorist intent. It's no secret that federal agencies have waged a broad, global war against terror, through and after the war in Afghanistan. But for the first time, in this memoir, an active Muslim American federal agent reveals his experience infiltrating and bringing down a terror cell in North America. Due to his ongoing work for the FBI, Elnoury writes under a pseudonym. An Arabic-speaking Muslim American, a patriot, a hero: To many Americans, it will be a revelation that he and his team even existed, let alone the vital and dangerous work they have done keeping all Americans safe.

What Makes a Terrorist

What Makes a Terrorist PDF Author: Alan B. Krueger
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691196079
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
"Krueger proves...that terrorists are not desperately poor killers but well-educated politicians using violence to draw attention to their 'market'--violent change."--Hernando de Soto, author of The Mystery of Capital. Features a new Introduction by the author.he author.

Terrorism and Counterintelligence

Terrorism and Counterintelligence PDF Author: Blake W. Mobley
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231158769
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Discussing the challenges terrorist groups face as they multiply and plot international attacks, while at the same time providing a framework for decoding the strengths and weaknesses of their counter-intelligence, Blake W. Mobley offers an indispensable text for the intelligence, military, homeland security, and law enforcement fields.

A High Price

A High Price PDF Author: Daniel Byman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199830452
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
The product of painstaking research and countless interviews, A High Price offers a nuanced, definitive historical account of Israel's bold but often failed efforts to fight terrorist groups. Beginning with the violent border disputes that emerged after Israel's founding in 1948, Daniel Byman charts the rise of Yasir Arafat's Fatah and leftist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--organizations that ushered in the era of international terrorism epitomized by the 1972 hostage-taking at the Munich Olympics. Byman reveals how Israel fought these groups and others, such as Hamas, in the decades that follow, with particular attention to the grinding and painful struggle during the second intifada. Israel's debacles in Lebanon against groups like the Lebanese Hizballah are examined in-depth, as is the country's problematic response to Jewish terrorist groups that have struck at Arabs and Israelis seeking peace. In surveying Israel's response to terror, the author points to the coups of shadowy Israeli intelligence services, the much-emulated use of defensive measures such as sky marshals on airplanes, and the role of controversial techniques such as targeted killings and the security barrier that separates Israel from Palestinian areas. Equally instructive are the shortcomings that have undermined Israel's counterterrorism goals, including a disregard for long-term planning and a failure to recognize the long-term political repercussions of counterterrorism tactics.

Transforming Terror

Transforming Terror PDF Author: Karin Lofthus Carrington
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520949455
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
This inspired collection offers a new paradigm for moving the world beyond violence as the first, and often only, response to violence. Through essays and poetry, prayers and meditations, Transforming Terror powerfully demonstrates that terrorist violence—defined here as any attack on unarmed civilians—can never be stopped by a return to the thinking that created it. A diverse array of contributors—writers, healers, spiritual and political leaders, scientists, and activists, including Desmond Tutu, Huston Smith, Riane Eisler, Daniel Ellsberg, Amos Oz, Fatema Mernissi, Fritjof Capra, George Lakoff, Mahmoud Darwish, Terry Tempest Williams, and Jack Kornfield—considers how we might transform the conditions that produce terrorist acts and bring true healing to the victims of these acts. Broadly encompassing both the Islamic and Western worlds, the book explores the nature of consciousness and offers a blueprint for change that makes peace possible. From unforgettable firsthand accounts of terrorism, the book draws us into awareness of our ecological and economic interdependence, the need for connectedness, and the innate human capacity for compassion.

Imperial Hubris

Imperial Hubris PDF Author: Michael Scheuer
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597973084
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Though U.S. leaders try to convince the world of their success in fighting al Qaeda, one anonymous member of the U.S. intelligence community would like to inform the public that we are, in fact, losing the war on terror. Further, until U.S. leaders recognize the errant path they have irresponsibly chosen, he says, our enemies will only grow stronger. According to the author, the greatest danger for Americans confronting the Islamist threat is to believe-at the urging of U.S. leaders-that Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do. Blustering political rhetor.

Understanding Terror Networks

Understanding Terror Networks PDF Author: Marc Sageman
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812206797
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
For decades, a new type of terrorism has been quietly gathering ranks in the world. America's ability to remain oblivious to these new movements ended on September 11, 2001. The Islamist fanatics in the global Salafi jihad (the violent, revivalist social movement of which al Qaeda is a part) target the West, but their operations mercilessly slaughter thousands of people of all races and religions throughout the world. Marc Sageman challenges conventional wisdom about terrorism, observing that the key to mounting an effective defense against future attacks is a thorough understanding of the networks that allow these new terrorists to proliferate. Based on intensive study of biographical data on 172 participants in the jihad, Understanding Terror Networks gives us the first social explanation of the global wave of activity. Sageman traces its roots in Egypt, gestation in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war, exile in the Sudan, and growth of branches worldwide, including detailed accounts of life within the Hamburg and Montreal cells that planned attacks on the United States. U.S. government strategies to combat the jihad are based on the traditional reasons an individual was thought to turn to terrorism: poverty, trauma, madness, and ignorance. Sageman refutes all these notions, showing that, for the vast majority of the mujahedin, social bonds predated ideological commitment, and it was these social networks that inspired alienated young Muslims to join the jihad. These men, isolated from the rest of society, were transformed into fanatics yearning for martyrdom and eager to kill. The tight bonds of family and friendship, paradoxically enhanced by the tenuous links between the cell groups (making it difficult for authorities to trace connections), contributed to the jihad movement's flexibility and longevity. And although Sageman's systematic analysis highlights the crucial role the networks played in the terrorists' success, he states unequivocally that the level of commitment and choice to embrace violence were entirely their own. Understanding Terror Networks combines Sageman's scrutiny of sources, personal acquaintance with Islamic fundamentalists, deep appreciation of history, and effective application of network theory, modeling, and forensic psychology. Sageman's unique research allows him to go beyond available academic studies, which are light on facts, and journalistic narratives, which are devoid of theory. The result is a profound contribution to our understanding of the perpetrators of 9/11 that has practical implications for the war on terror.