The tangled web of terrorist logic

Terrorists believe they can achieve their aims only by violence. Through violence they spread fear in society, which they hope to add to their power.

It is not possible to defeat terrorism by security measures. By itself, military force is only likely to meet with increased violence, producing a vicious circle in which bloodshed continues to be answered with more bloodshed. When embarking on the fight against terrorists, we need to understand, and then combat, their way of thinking, the way they view life and other human beings and how they justify their use of violence.

A terrorist believes that he can only succeed by using violence. He wants people around to fear him, and cloaks himself in pitilessness, ruthlessness and aggression to bring that fear about. Anyone opposing his ideas is an enemy, whom he regards as an object that needs to be eliminated. In his article, "Terrorists View us as Targets, not as Humans," psychotherapist and Journal Sentinel writer Philip Chard examines the terrorist mindset and how they justify violent attacks aimed at defenseless people:

"Researchers have glimpsed aspects of [the terrorists'] psyches. Most prominent among these is their capacity to view their victims as things, as objects, as statistics that, they hope, will show up on a casualty list.

"They don't want to experience their victims as human beings, as they would a friend or loved one. Rather, they strive to view them as pawns on a political chessboard. Consequently, from their own vantage point, terrorists don't perceive themselves as killing ‘people.' In order to slaughter with ease and callous indifference, they mentally dehumanize us into ‘targets' ... Their ‘cause,' whatever it may be, is sufficiently sacred, noble or desperate that it justifies the carnage they instigate ... For most terrorists, their chief interest resides in effects, not persons ... They are after ... the impact of the massacre, not the experience of the massacre itself. Terrorists want to murder hope, or a way of life, or the spirit of a group of people or an entire nation. They destroy human beings because they believe doing so is the fastest and most direct route to that goal."11

Philip Chard draws our attention to a most important matter; that terrorists feel not the slightest pang of remorse at the death of others. On the contrary, the more they can kill, the more successful they foolishly consider themselves to be, and they rejoice in that fact. Such ill minds can quite happily shoot innocent people and bomb small children. For them, shedding blood becomes a source of pleasure due to their perverted logic. They cease to be human and turn into savage monsters. If one of them does evidence the slightest remorse, he is immediately branded a traitor by his more radical comrades. Being more radical and more bloody is regarded as being more devoted to the cause, so the zeal to kill increases constantly. Since any dispute can easily be defined as betrayal, terrorists invariably use guns against each other, and carry out attacks on other splinter groups within their own ranks.

This passionate attachment to violence goes deeper than political ideologies and in fact stems from an underlying misconception about human nature. The terrorist mindset draws its inspiration from materialist philosophy and Darwinist thought. Darwinism regards human beings as animals and maintains that living things evolve through a struggle for survival in nature. Eliminating the weak, so that the strong can emerge victorious, forms the essence of any terrorist's twisted thinking.