Politics Of Extremism 4354 Syll

Political Science 4354 DR. ARNOLD LEDER
THE POLITICS OF EXTREMISM

Department Of Political Science/Texas State University
The online version of this syllabus can be accessed @ http://arnoldleder.com/4354.htm.
A condensed version of this syllabus for print as well as password protected materials for this course can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section on "Terrorism". For the condensed print syllabus in the section on "Terrorism" click on the link labeled "Condensed 4354 Print Syllabus". Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course. For links to web syllabi for other courses taught by Dr. Leder see: http://www.arnoldleder.com/.
For a list of undergraduate courses in Political Science by group, see: http://www.polisci.txstate.edu/courses/undergrad-courses.html.

Office: ELA 335
Office Hours: TBA & by appointment
Texas State University Academic Schedule
Texas State University Final Exam Schedule
Schedule of Classes @ Texas State University

Selected Web Resources For Texas State University
Texas State University Library
Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library
Citation & Bibliographic Styles & Related Information

Selected Web Resources For Political Science
Portals to the World Home Page (Library of Congress)
Internet Political Science Resources-Extensive University Links/University Of Michigan
TheWWW Virtual Library:International Affairs Resources
The Ultimate Political Science Links Page
Internet Islamic History Sources/Fordham University (Comprehensive Site With Links For Many Aspects Of The Islamic Experience)

Links To Sites On Terrorism (Library of Congress)

Note On Course & Syllabus Materials: Students may find books, articles, links, websites, and other materials provided in this syllabus useful and of interest. Their listing in this syllabus, including those which are required and recommended, does not necessarily indicate endorsement of or agreement with any views or positions on any issues found in these materials, websites, or on other sites to which they may provide links.

Note On Access To Articles: Access to articles through the Texas State University Library, @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library available to all Texas State University students, requires a valid User Name and a Password. Most of the links in this syllabus provide direct access to the article.

Password Protected Materials: Some materials on this web syllabus are password protected and are directly accessible @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. These materials are for student use. The password will be provided to students in the course.

Note: Wikipedia is used in several instances in this syllabus as a convenient reference on a variety of matters. Students should be aware of the dispute among academics and others with respect to the reliability and accuracy of Wikipedia and they should not assume that a Wikipedia entry is the last word or most accurate information on the subject. For an interesting essay on Wikipedia, see: Stacy Schiff/Know It All: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?/The New Yorker/July 31, 2006 (Note: See Naom Cohen's NYT March 05, 2007 article, also noted below, for a problem with Schiff's article.)
Schiff's article may be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library A valid Texas State University student ID and user name are required.

For another view of the merits of Wikipedia, see:
Brock Read/Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?/The Chronicle Of Higher Education/October 27, 2006
"As questions about the accuracy of the anyone-can-edit encyclopedia persist, academics are split on whether to ignore it, or start contributing."
See also: Noam Cohen/A History Department (Middlebury College in Vermont) Bans Citing Wikipedia as a Research Source/NYT February 21, 2007
Naom Cohen/A Contributor to Wikipedia Has His Fictional Side/NYT March 05, 2007
With Wikipedia, what you see is not always what you get (with related links)/blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/3872/March 06, 2007 (Note the reference in this piece to the Stacy Schiff article above in which Schiff interviewed a Wikipedia site administrator and contributor called Essjay whose academic credentials were, in fact, fabricated.)

For information on self-interested editing of Wikipedia, see: Katie Hafner/Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits/NYT August 19, 2007.
"... examples of insider editing came to light last week through WikiScanner, a new Web site that traces the source of millions of changes to Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
The site, http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/, created by a computer science graduate student, cross-references an edited entry on Wikipedia with the owner of the computer network where the change originated, using the Internet protocol address of the editor’s network. The address information was already available on Wikipedia, but the new site makes it much easier to connect those numbers with the names of network owners.
Since Wired News first wrote about WikiScanner last week, Internet users have spotted plenty of interesting changes to Wikipedia by people at nonprofit groups and government entities like the Central Intelligence Agency. Many of the most obviously self-interested edits have come from corporate networks".

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OVERVIEW OF COURSE

Course Title
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

Topics
I. Conceptual Concerns: "Conventional", "Rancorous", & "Extremist" Politics
II. Terrorism: Definitions, "Causes", & Dimensions
III. Conceptualizing Terrorism: Strategic Choice; Product Of Psychological Forces; Fantasy; War; Culture
IV. Religion & Terrorism: Radical Islam
V. Suicide & Terrorism
VI. Women & Terrorism
VII. Islam in the West: Globalization, "Individualization", & Radicalism
VIII. Islam in Russia
IX. Defeating Terrorism: Terrorist Organization, Intelligence, Interrogation, & Moral Dimensions
X. The Future Of Terrorism

Note On Access To Articles: Access to articles through the Texas State University Library, available to all Texas State University students, requires a valid User Name and a Password. Most of the links in this syllabus provide direct access to the article.

Course Description & Purpose
This course is an undergraduate seminar on international terrorism. Theoretical literature, cross-national studies, single-case studies, and visits to selected web sites serve as the basis for examination and understanding of this phenomenon.

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COURSE ORGANIZATION & STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES

Class Participation, Oral Presentations, Exams, Papers, Grades
1. This course will be conducted as a seminar. Students must attend every class meeting and be prepared to discuss assigned readings and other materials. Active participation in class discussion is essential. Course grades will be determined by oral presentations, class participation, and written papers.
2. Determinants of Course Grade: Oral Reports & Presentations 25%/ Seminar Participation 15%/ Essay Exams/Papers 60%

Attendance
1. Three (3) unexcused absences are permitted. Students with four (4) unexcused absences will have their course grade lowered by one letter grade. Students who have five (5) unexcused absences will have their course grade lowered by two letter grades. No absences beyond five (5) for any reason are permitted. Any student who has more than five absences is likely to fail the course and, therefore, should withdraw from the course.
2. The instructor for the course is not responsible for bringing students who have missed class "up-to-date" on missed material. Each student has the responsibility to remain current with respect to class material.

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Academic Honesty Statement/Texas State University
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES
Please see: Academic Honesty Statement for Texas State University @
http://www.txstate.edu/effective/upps/upps-07-10-01.html.
An excerpt from this statement can be found at the end of this syllabus.
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COURSE CONTENT

Required Books
-Paul Berman/Terror And Liberalism (Norton 2003)
-Mia Bloom/Dying To Kill: The Allure Of Suicide Terror (Columbia University Press 2005)
-Ian Buruma & Avishai Margalit/Occidentalism: The West In The Eyes Of Its Enemies (Penguin 2004)
-Bruce Hoffman/Inside Terrorism (Columbia University Press 2006)
-Walter Laqueur/No End To War: Terrorism In The Twenty-First Century (Continuum 2003)
-Walter Reich(ed.)/Origins Of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States Of Mind (Johns Hopkins University Press 1990 & 1998)

*Coope, The Martyrs of Cordoba, is not about terrorism. This overlooked, interesting book provides insight into the connection between religion and a willingness and even desire to die in defense of one's faith among radical Christians who feared assimilation into the flourishing Arab Muslim culture during the period of Muslim rule of much of Spain or al-Andalus.

Required Articles
Required articles are listed separately in each section of the syllabus.

Required Films/Videos
One Day In September (1999) [1hr. 34 min.] Academy Award winning documentary on the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the Olympics in Munich.
The Battle Of Algiers (1967) [French with English Subtitles - 2hrs. 1 min.] The classic propaganda film justifying terrorism. This film has inspired many terrorist groups and it has been studied by various counter-terrorist agencies.

Recommended Films/Videos
My Son The Fanatic (British 1997) [1hr. 27 min.]
For more on this film see: June Thomas/The First 7/7 Movie: In the Wake of the London Bombings, a look back at My Son the Fanatic/slate.com/July 18 2005
Excerpt from June Thomas essay on the film My Son The Fanatic:
"After 9/11, the big question was why: Why do they hate us? In the days following 7/7, everyone seems to be asking how: How could apparently assimilated, British-born Muslims end up stuffing bombs into their backpacks and murdering dozens of their compatriots in the Tube and on a London double-decker bus?"

Some possible answers are offered in Udayan Prasad's 1997 movie My Son the Fanatic. Written by Hanif Kureishi (based on a skeletal short story he first published in The New Yorker), the film shows how the British-born son of Pakistani immigrants morphs from a clothes-obsessed, cricket-playing, music-loving accountancy student into a devout Muslim who rails against the corruption and emptiness of Western society, much to the uncomprehending consternation of his father."

Hate (French w/English subtitles 1995 [1hr. 35 min.]
An intense, violent film that depicts the life of angry, disaffected minority youth in the suburbs of Paris. Offers some insight into the perspective of mostly Muslim rioting youth in France, although the three young men on whom this disturbing film focuses are ethnically African, Arab, and Jewish.
For more on this film see: Alan Riding/Entracte (between acts): If only French leaders listened to pop culture/International Herald Tribune/November 24 2005
Excerpt from Alan Riding essay on the film Hate:
"So life often imitates art. Yet with the recent uprisings in some French immigrant neighborhoods, this cliché came with a new twist: art in the form of movies and rap music has long been warning that French-born Arab and black youths felt increasingly alienated from French society, that their banlieues were ripe for explosion.

Certainly, anyone who saw Mathieu Kassovitz's film, 'La Haine', or 'Hate' a decade ago had no reason to be surprised by this fall's violence. At the time, Kassovitz's portrayal of a seething immigrant Paris suburb, even his choice of the word 'hate' for his title, seemed shocking, even exaggerated. Today, the movie could almost pass as a documentary.

In 'Hate', burning cars light up the soulless space between high-rise public housing projects as local residents protest the beating of a young Arab, Ahmed. Nearby, graffiti proclaim: 'Don't forget, the police kill.' Three angry and restless youths - a Jew, an Arab and a black - visit Ahmed in the hospital and are themselves beaten by the police. They plan revenge."
See also: http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/~os0tmc/contemp1/lahaine.htm

Chaos (French w/English subtitles 2001 [1hr. 49 min.]
"Although comedy takes precedence in most parts of the film, it is the social commentary part that will spark the most debate. France has the largest Muslim population in Europe, mostly from its citizens who are from its former colonies in North Africa. Culture clashes are inevitable when a burgeoning and mostly traditional Muslim society slowly assimilates itself within a Western society that lives by much different values. In this film, Serreau tries to address the hot issue of traditional Muslim society’s treatment of women, specifically the issue of fathers 'selling' their teenage daughters into marriages with much older men. Melodrama aside, 'Chaos' has a serious message to convey to its audience and it does it with force and without fear".
Excerpt from: http://www.dvdtown.com/review/chaos/11612/1928/

For a Review Essay on Films Related to Islam in the West see:
Alan Riding/On Screen, Tackling Europe's New Reality (Review of Films by and/or about Muslims In Europe-w/links to information on noted films)/NYT/January 18 2005

Munich (Spielberg 2005 [2hrs. 44 min.]) See reviews below in "3. Dimensions Of Terrorism: Ethno-Nationalist & Separatist Terrorism; International Terrorism" in Section II.

Topics For Reading, Oral Presentations, & Discussion

I. Conceptual Concerns: "Conventional", "Rancorous", & "Extremist" Politics
Lecture & Discussion
Readings: Joel Olson, "The Freshness of Fanaticism: The Abolitionist Defense of Zealotry", Perspectives on Politics, Volume 5, Number 4, December 2007, pp. 685-701. This article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Abstract:
Zealotry or fanaticism is increasingly regarded as one of the principal threats to liberal democracy in the twenty-first century. Yet even as it is universally disparaged, zealotry is a severely understudied concept. This article seeks to formulate a critical theory of zealotry and investigate its relationship to democracy through a close reading of the speeches of the radical abolitionist orator Wendell Phillips. The American abolitionists were passionate democrats. Yet many of them, such as Phillips, were also self-defined fanatics who believed in using extremist language and tactics on behalf of the slave. Phillips's speeches suggest a specifically political definition of zealotry as a strategy that seeks to mobilize populations in defense of a particular position by dividing the public sphere into friends (those who support the position) and enemies (those who oppose it) and pressuring the moderates in between. Through his defense of fanaticism and his argument for disunion, Phillips articulates a democratic form of fanaticism that challenges common pejorative associations of zealotry with irrationality, intolerance, fundamentalism, or terrorism. (boldface added)

Cass R. Sunstein/The Polarization of Extremes/The Chronicle Review, December 14, 2007, Volume 54, Issue 16, p. B9. This article is also directly accessible @ http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/sunstein-121407-polarization.html.
"... an experiment conducted in Colorado in 2005, designed to cast light on the consequences of self-sorting.
... In almost every case, people held more-extreme positions after they spoke with like-minded others.
...
A key consequence of this kind of self-sorting is what we might call enclave extremism. When people end up in enclaves of like-minded people, they usually move toward a more extreme point in the direction to which the group's members were originally inclined. Enclave extremism is a special case of the broader phenomenon of group polarization, which extends well beyond politics and occurs as groups adopt a more extreme version of whatever view is antecedently favored by their members. Why do enclaves, on the Internet and elsewhere, produce political polarization? The first explanation emphasizes the role of information. (boldface added)

The final explanation is the most subtle, and probably the most important. The starting point here is that on many issues, most of us are really not sure what we think. Our lack of certainty inclines us toward the middle. Outside of enclaves, moderation is the usual path. Now imagine that people find themselves in enclaves in which they exclusively hear from others who think as they do. As a result, their confidence typically grows, and they become more extreme in their beliefs. Corroboration, in short, reduces tentativeness, and an increase in confidence produces extremism. Enclave extremism is particularly likely to occur on the Internet because people can so easily find niches of like-minded types — and discover that their own tentative view is shared by others".

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

II. Terrorism
1. Defining Terrorism: An Overview
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 1; Laqueur, pp. 138-149 and Appendix, pp.232-238; Avishag Gordon, "Terrorism as an Academic Subject after 9/11: Searching the Internet Reveals a Stockholm Syndrome Trend", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, January-February 2005, Vol. 28: 45-59. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

2. "Causes" Of Terrorism
Readings: Laqueur, Chapter 1.
James Q. Wilson/What Makes a Terrorist?/City Journal/Winter 2004
Alan Krueger/What Makes a Terrorist/The American/November-December 2007, Vol. 1, No. 7.
Politicians, pundits, and religious leaders ascribe terrorism to poverty and lack of education. Economic research points elsewhere.

3. Dimensions Of Terrorism
a. Ethno-Nationalist & Separatist Terrorism
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 2.

b. The Internationalization of Terrorism
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 3.

c. Public Opinion: Old & New Media
Readings: Hoffman, Chapters 6, 7.
d. Tactics & Targets
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 8.
Noah Feldman/Islam, Terror & the Second Nuclear Age/NYT-Sunday Magazine/October 29, 2006

Films/Videos:
One Day In September (1999) [1hr. 34 min.] For remarks on the 1972 Munich massacre, see Hoffman, "The PLO and the Internationalization of Terrorism", pp. 65-71. On deception and "pseudo-groups" as a framework for examination of the "Black September" terrorist group which carried out the 1972 Munich massacre, see Jenkins, "False Flags", pp. 87-109. For specific remarks on the links between Arafat's al-Fatah group and the "Black September" group, see Jenkins, p. 97. [The Jenkins materials cited here are available at the Reserve Desk Texas State University Library.]

Munich (Spielberg 2005 [2hrs. 44 min.] )
See: Aaron J. Klein/The History Behind Munich: Separating truth from fiction in Spielberg's movie/Slate/December 23 2005
David Brooks, "What 'Munich' Left Out", NYT, December 11, 2005 @ http://www.israpundit.com/archives/2005/12/what_munich_lef.php
This Brooks article can also be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Edward Rothstein/Seeing Terrorism as Drama With Sequels and Prequels/NYT/December 26 2005
Leon Wieseltier, "Hits-Washington Diarist", The New Republic, December 19 2005. The complete text of Wieseltier's essay can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

For a wide ranging selection of links to both positive and negative views in the print media as well as in the "blogosphere" on Spielberg's film "Munich", see: http://www.keshertalk.com/archives/2005/12/munich_the_movi_2.php The publishers of this blog, "Kesher Talk", describe the blog as "News and views from a hawkish liberal Jewish perspective..." The views expressed on the sites to which this blog links and its own views as well do not necessarily reflect any views held by the instructor for this course. The archival link to this blog's roundup of many different perspectives on Spielberg's film is provided here for interested students.

III. Conceptualizing Terrorism
1. Terrorism As Strategic Choice
Readings: Martha Crenshaw, "The Logic Of Terrorism: Terrorist Behavior As A Product Of Strategic Choice" in Reich, Chapter 1.

Films/Videos:
The Battle Of Algiers (1967) [French With English Subtitles - 2hrs. 1 min.]
Film Clip from "The Battle of Algiers"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhfOVIueEdg (02:16)

Elisabetto Povoledo/Gillo Pontecorvo, 86, Director of "Battle of Algiers" Dies/NYT October 14, 2006

2. Terrorism As A Product Of Psychological Forces
Readings: Jerrold M. Post, "Terrorist Psycho-logic: Terrorism As A Product Of Psychological Forces" in Reich, Chapter 2.
Walter Laqueur/The search for a general theory of terrorism/(London)Times Online/December 7, 2005
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Recommended:
Joseph Conrad/Under Western Eyes (Penguin - First Published 1911)

For remarks on the insights of Conrad's book, see: Tom Reiss/The True Classic of Terrorism/NYT/September 11, 2005

3. Terrorism As Fantasy & "Theater Of The Mind"
Readings:
Lee Harris/Al Qaeda's Fantasy Ideology/Policy Review August-September 2002 (For Lee Harris' views on how the West has perceived the terrorism practised by radical Islam, in this syllabus see Edward Rothstein's reflections on Lee Harris' recent book as well as Lee Harris' article in the Summer 2007 issue of City Journal below in Section c. of IV.)
Michael Ignatieff/The Terrorist As Auteur/NYT Sunday Magazine November 14, 2004
Arthur Saniotis, "Re-Enchanting Terrorism: Jihadists as 'Liminal Beings'", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, November 2005, Vol. 28: 533-545. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

4. Terrorism As Totalitarianism's War Against Liberalism
Readings: Berman, Chapters I, II.
For more information on Paul Berman's book, Terror and Liberalism, and The Rebel by Albert Camus whose ideas Berman examines, see:
Paul Berman Interviewed @ The Carnegie Council/April 15, 2003/cceia.org by John P. Diggins
"... Paul Berman, a writer ... recognized for his penetrating philosophical perspectives on a vast array of social and cultural topics. His latest work, (Terrror and Liberalism (Norton 2003 Paper Reprint 2004) focuses on a subject that is generating a great deal of interest, as it is the first book to address the political/philosophical dimensions of the current conflict found in Islamic fundamentalism and on the War on Terror."
Allen Barra/The rebel/Salon/November 01, 2004
"The rebel. The political right and left have been fighting for Albert Camus' legacy, but Europe's most influential literary export remains stubbornly elusive."
Scott McLemee/Fighting Words:Camus, Sartre, And The Rift That Helped Define Them/bookforum.com/Spring 2004

For a negative critique of Paul Berman's book, Terror and Liberalism, see:
Ian Buruma/Revolution from Above (A review of Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism)/New York Review of Books/Vol. 50, No. 7, May 01, 2003
For a view of Paul Berman's book that notes the similarity of Berman's view of totalitarianism to the view of Hanna Arendt, the political theorist, see:
Benjamin Balint/Hannah Arendt 100 Years Later/Forward October 06, 2006
"Islamic terrorism is the new totalitarianism. At least that’s the impression one gets from some Western commentators these days. In Terror and Liberalism, Paul Berman invoked totalitarianism in order to explain the strikingly modern ideology of Islamism".
For more on Hannah Arendt, see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt (See note on wikipedia at beginning of syllabus.)
For a critical review of Hannah Arendt's work, see: Russell Jacoby/Hannah Arendt's Fame Rests on the Wrong Foundation/The Chronicle Review December 08, 2006

The_Rebel by Albert Camus is important in the development of Paul Berman's views in his book Terror and Liberalism.
For a discussion of the themes and ideas that inform The Rebel, see:
Eamon's Bookmark: The Rebel - Part I/Vol. II, Issue 2, June 2004
Eamon's Bookmark: The Rebel - Part II/Volume II, Issue 3, July 2004
Eamon's Bookmark: The Rebel- Part III/Volume II, Issue 4, August 2004
Eamon's Bookmark: The Rebel - Part I/Volume II, Issue 5, September 2004

See also: Richard Eder/Uncomfortable in His Skin, Thriving in His Mind/NYT June 25, 2008, p. B8. A review of Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959, Translated by Ryan Bloom (Ivan R. Dee 2008). For additional materials on Camus, see: Albert Camus
"The split took place when Camus took issue with the absolutism of revolutions. Seeking to realize their ideals, he argued, they end up using violence and tyranny. It was an attack on Soviet Communism at a time when Sartre and his followers were becoming its increasingly rigid supporters.
... They insisted that overt repression, however repellent, was the only way to fight the insidious structural tyranny of colonialist capitalism. One must choose, painfully. No we mustn’t, Camus rejoined: neither be killers nor victims.
... There was nothing convenient in Camus. He was closer to Milovan Djilas, once a hard-line Communist, then jailed by Tito, and in the end proclaiming his battle-won political credo: 'the unperfect society.'
... The vicious war between French forces and the F.L.N. — the Algerian nationalists — was his own civil war.
... He writes to an Algerian friend, an F.L.N. supporter: “You should not ignore the shooting, nor justify that they shoot at the French-Algerians in general, and thus entangled, shoot at my family, who have always been poor and without hatred ... No cause, even if it had remained innocent and just, will ever tear me from my mother, who is the greatest cause that I know in the world.” (boldface added)

Paul Berman/Why Radical Islam Just Won't Die/NYT Week in Review/Sunday, March 23, 2008
"... radical Islamism is a modern philosophy, not just a heap of medieval prejudices. In its sundry versions, it draws on local and religious roots, just as it claims to do. But it also draws on totalitarian inspirations from 20th-century Europe. I wanted my readers to understand that with its double roots, religious and modern, perversely intertwined, radical Islamism wields a lot more power, intellectually speaking, than naïve observers might suppose....
... Five years ago, anyone who took an interest in Middle Eastern affairs would easily have recalled that, over the course of a century, the intellectuals of the region have gone through any number of phases — liberal, Marxist, secularist, pious, traditionalist, nationalist, anti-imperialist and so forth, just like intellectuals everywhere else in the world.

Western intellectuals without any sort of Middle Eastern background would naturally have manifested an ardent solidarity with their Middle Eastern and Muslim counterparts who stand in the liberal vein — the Muslim free spirits of our own time, who argue in favor of human rights, rational thought (as opposed to dogma), tolerance and an open society.

But that was then. In today’s Middle East, the various radical Islamists, basking in their success, paint their liberal rivals and opponents as traitors to Muslim civilization, stooges of crusader or Zionist aggression. And, weirdly enough, all too many intellectuals in the Western countries have lately assented to those preposterous accusations, in a sanitized version suitable for Western consumption. (boldface added)

Even in the Western countries, quite a few Muslim liberals, the outspoken ones, live today under a threat of assassination, not to mention a reality of character assassination. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch legislator and writer, is merely an exceptionally valiant example. But instead of enjoying the unstinting support of their non-Muslim colleagues, the Muslim liberals find themselves routinely berated in the highbrow magazines and the universities as deracinated nonentities, alienated from the Muslim world. Or they find themselves pilloried as stooges of the neoconservative conspiracy — quite as if any writer from a Muslim background who fails to adhere to at least a few anti-imperialist or anti-Zionist tenets of the Islamist doctrine must be incapable of thinking his or her own thoughts.

A dismaying development. One more sign of the power of the extremist ideologies — one more surprising turn of events, on top of all the other dreadful and gut-wrenching surprises".

5. Terrorism As Murderous Occidentalism
Readings: Buruma & Margalit, pp. 1-99.

See also: Ian Buruma/The Origins Of Occidentalism/The Chronicle Review/February 6, 2004
From the publisher's note for Ian Buruma & Avishai Margalit/Occidentalism: The West In The Eyes Of Its Enemies (Penguin 2004):
"Twenty-five years after Edward Said's Orientalism, a whole field of study has developed to analyze and interpret the denigrating fantasies of the exotic "East" that sustained the colonial mind. But what about the fantasies of "the West" in the eyes of our self-proclaimed enemies"?
For more on Edward Said's Orientalism and critics of his book, see:
Charles P. Freund/2001 Nights:The End Of The Orientalist Critique/Reason/December, 2001
Keith Windschuttle/Edward Said's "Orientalism Revisited"/The New Criterion/January 17, 1999

Bernard Lewis, "The Question of Orientalism", The New York Review of Books, Vol. 29, No. 11, June 24, 1982.
This article can be accessed @ this location.

From the first paragraphs of above Bernard Lewis article: "Imagine a situation in which a group of patriots and radicals from Greece decides that the profession of classical studies is insulting to the great heritage of Hellas, and that those engaged in these studies, known as classicists, are the latest manifestation of a deep and evil conspiracy, incubated for centuries, hatched in Western Europe, fledged in America, the purpose of which is to denigrate the Greek achievement and subjugate the Greek lands and peoples. In this perspective, the entire European tradition of classical studies—largely the creation of French romantics, British colonial governors (of Cyprus, of course), and of poets, professors, and proconsuls from both countries—is a long-standing insult to the honor and integrity of Hellas, and a threat to its future. The poison has spread from Europe to the United States, where the teaching of Greek history, language, and literature in the universities is dominated by the evil race of classicists—men and women who are not of Greek origin, who have no sympathy for Greek causes, and who, under a false mask of dispassionate scholarship, strive to keep the Greek people in a state of permanent subordination. The time has come to save Greece from the classicists and bring the whole pernicious tradition of classical scholarship to an end. Only Greeks are truly able to teach and write on Greek history and culture from remote antiquity to the present day; only Greeks are genuinely competent to direct and conduct programs of academic studies in these fields. Some non-Greeks may be permitted to join in this great endeavor provided that they give convincing evidence of their competence, as for example by campaigning for the Greek cause in Cyprus, by demonstrating their ill will to the Turks, by offering a pinch of incense to the currently enthroned Greek gods, and by adopting whatever may be the latest fashionable ideology in Greek intellectual circles.
...
Stated in terms of classics and Greek, the picture is absurd. But if for classicist we substitute "Orientalist," with the appropriate accompanying changes, this amusing fantasy becomes an alarming reality. For some years now a hue and cry has been raised against Orientalists in American and to a lesser extent European universities, and the term "Orientalism" has been emptied of its previous content and given an entirely new one—that of unsympathetic or hostile treatment of Oriental peoples. For that matter, even the terms "unsympathetic" and "hostile" have been redefined to mean not supportive of currently fashionable creeds or causes".

Edward Said-Bernard Lewis Exchange/The New York Review of Books, Vo. 29, No. 13, August 12, 1982

Edward Said/Islam Through Western Eyes/The Nation April 26, 1980 (Posted online January 01, 1998)

Martin Kramer/Said's Splash-chapter two (pp. 27-43.) of: Martin Kramer/Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001)

Robert Irwin/Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism And Its Discontents (The Overlook Press 2006 -paperback edition 2008)
From Publishers Weekly:
"Almost 30 years ago, in his classic Orientalism, the late cultural critic Edward Said published a scathing denunciation of Oriental studies, blaming the field for the rise of Western imperialism and racist views about Arabs and other Eastern peoples. British historian Irwin (The Alhambra) fiercely condemns Said's misinterpretation, offering both a brilliant defense of Orientalism and a masterful intellectual history of the Orientalists and their work, which opened windows on the world of Asia in general and Islam in particular, providing the West with glimpses of the social and religious practices of these cultures. Irwin surveys the history of Orientalism from the Greeks through the Middle Ages to its height in the 18th and 19th centuries. He chronicles the lives and works of the men who introduced the ideas of Islamic and Asian culture to the West. Many of these men were biblical critics whose command of Hebrew allowed them to move easily to Arabic and to explore the Koran. In the 17th century, the dragomans, or translators, moved the study of Islam forward by providing translations of Turkish, Arabic and Persian texts. Irwin's wide-ranging study splendidly captures a time when intellectual polymaths traversed foreign territories in search of new and compelling ideas".

From the Introduction to Robert Irwin's book: "... that book (Edward Said's Orientalism) seems to me to be a work of malignant charlantry in which it is hard to dsitinguish honest mistakes from wilful misrepresentations". (p. 4., hardcover edition)

See also:
Robert Irwin/Edward Said's shadowy legacy/The Times Literary Supplement (London), May 7, 2008
Tricky with argument, weak in languages, careless of facts: but, thirty years on, Said still dominates debate.
"So many academics want the arguments presented in Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) to be true. It encourages the reading of novels at an oblique angle in order to discover hidden colonialist subtexts. It promotes a hypercritical version of British and, more generally, of Western achievements. It discourages any kind of critical approach to Islam in Middle Eastern studies. Above all, Orientalism licenses those academics who are so minded to think of their research and teaching as political activities. The drudgery of teaching is thus transformed into something much more exciting, namely 'speaking truth to power'.
...
Said had a problem with languages. For example, when discussing the writings of Sir William Jones and Friedrich Schlegel, he was mysteriously determined to deny that Sanskrit, Persian, German and Greek all belonged to the same broad group of languages – a sort of club to which Arabic could not belong. Ibn Warraq, in discussing Said’s attitude to Orientalists, remarks that he was “particularly jealous of their mastery of languages”. German scholars dominated Arabic, Hebrew and Sanskrit studies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, yet Said avoided any substantial discussion of their work. Some critics have argued that this was because the pre-eminence of German Orientalists did not fit his thesis about the interdependence of Orientalism and imperialism in the Middle East, but others have suggested that it was because his German was not very good
...
Said died in 2003, and it is thirty years since he launched his assault on Western culture. Things may have moved on since then. As a last resort, some of Said’s nervous apologists have suggested this, hoping, perhaps, to fend off further criticism of his inconsistent methodology and shaky grasp of facts".

Gary Kamiya/How Edward Said took intellectuals for a ride/Salon.com December 06, 2006
Maya Jasanoff/Before and After Said/London Review of Books, June 8, 2006
Efraim Karsh and Rory Miller/Did Edward Said Really Speak Truth to Power?/Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2008, pp. 13-21.

See also:
David Cannadine/Ornamentalism: How The British Saw Their Empire (Oxford Univ. Press 2001)
"David Cannadine's Ornamentalism is so stimulating and original that it will now and forever after be read hand in hand with Edward Said's Orientalism." (boldface added) This is the comment of Wm. Roger Louis, Editor-in-Chief, The Oxford History of the British Empire, Oxford University Press.

Reviews of David Cannadine's Ornamentalism:
Sarah Lyall/Was the Sahib, Then Just a Snob?/NYT August 25, 2001
His (David Cannadine's book Ornamentalism) serves as a riposte of sorts to Edward Said's highly influential work ''Orientalism'' (1978), which argued that Western attitudes toward the nonwhite world have traditionally been informed by a manufactured notion of ''otherness,'' used both to interpret and control it and to bolster the West's own sense of identity. Mr. Cannadine feels that Mr. Said's thesis is indeed valid, but only up to a point. (boldface added)
Benjamin Schwarz/A Bit Of Bunting/The Atlantic, November 2001

6. Terrorism As Part Of A Cultural Template
Stanley Kurtz/I and My Brother Against My Cousin/Weekly Standard, April 14, 2008, Vol. 013, Issue 29
A review essay on Culture and Conflict in the Middle East by Philip Carl Salzman (Humanity Books 2008). See also: Philip Carl Salzman/The Middle East's Tribal DNA/Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2008, pp. 23-33.

From Stanley Kurtz's article:
Is Islam the best way to understand the war on terror? Tribalism may offer a clearer view of our enemies' motivations.

"Universal male militarization, surprise attacks on apparent innocents based on a principle of collective guilt, and the careful group monitoring and control of personal behavior are just a few implications of a system that accounts for many aspects of Middle Eastern society without requiring any explanatory recourse to Islam. The religion itself is an overlay in partial tension with, and deeply stamped by, the dynamics of tribal life. In other words--and this is Salz-man's central argument--the template of tribal life, with its violent and shifting balance of power between fusing and fissioning lineage segments, is the dominant theme of cultural life in the Arab Middle East (and shapes even many non-Arab Muslim populations). At its cultural core, says Salzman, even where tribal structures are attenuated, Middle Eastern society is tribal society.
...
The swift and seemingly disproportionate resort to retaliatory force against apparently trivial offenses is an effective technique for suppressing future challenges. Most of the feuds Salzman describes, however weighty and enduring, break out over seemingly petty and inconsequential matters, like the mistaken appropriation of some palm trunks. Rifle shots, intentionally off the mark, are used to intimidate, as are calculated threats of murder. The careful use of targeted force and credible threats against Western critics of Islamism shows genuine mastery of the technique of deterrent intimidation. Here as elsewhere, an overtly religious action is actually shaped by a hidden tribal template.
...
The most disturbing lesson of all is that, in the absence of fundamental cultural change, the feud between the Muslim world and the West is unlikely ever to end. Tribal feuds simmer on and off for generations, with negotiated settlements effecting only temporary respites. Among the tribes of Waziristan, the saying goes: "I took my revenge early. I waited only 100 years." The Western liberal template takes an experience of peace under the lawful authority of a state as the normal human condition. In this view, when peaceful equilibrium is disturbed, reasonable men reason together to restore normalcy".

Philip Carl Salzman's first-person statement on his book may be read at @ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/04/culture_and_conflict_in_the_middle_east/.
"I argue that a major influence is Arab culture, grounded in Bedouin culture—understanding “culture” as cognitive frames which serve as “models of” the way the world is, and “models for” action in the future. Two major characteristics of Arab culture are particularist group loyalty, and balanced or complementary opposition. These models serve well for decentralized social control and security in segmentary tribal settings, but are uncongenial to inclusive polities and universalistic legal regimes.
...
Postcolonial theorists, inspired by Edward Said’s Orientalism, take a harder line, arguing that no generalization about the Middle East is valid, because such generalizations suppress the variety and diversity of reality, essentialize where no essence exists, and imposes disparaging interpretations in the service of imperialism and colonialism. But my judgment is that these postcolonial arguments are unsound and without foundation. First, all concepts and categories, without which thinking is impossible, are abstractions, encompassing the many variations of the unique individuals (whether trees, camels, or cultures) included. So abstraction and generalization are not only not the wrong things, they are the only things possible. Second, all peoples and societies are not the same; they are different, and differ significantly. Ignoring these indisputable differences is not good manners; it is ignorance or denial".

Return To Beginning Of Syllabus

IV. Religion & Terrorism: Radical Islam
1. Religion & Terrorism
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 4.
Bernard Lewis, "The Roots Of Muslim Rage", Atlantic Monthly, September 1990-reprinted @ this location. (pdf)
This Lewis article can also be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

2. Radical Islam & Terrorism
a. Origins
Readings: Laqueur, Chapter 2.
Bernard Lewis, "The Revolt of Islam", The New Yorker, December 19, 2001- reprinted @ http://www.aijac.org.au/updates/Dec-01/031201.html
Quintan Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, February 2005, Vol. 28: 75-97. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

William Dalrymple/Inside the Madrasas/The New York Review of Books/December 1, 2005, Vol. 52, No. 19. Access to the entire article is restricted at this site. The entire Dalrymple article as well as the entire Wiktorowicz article can be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to the section on "Terrorism" and look for the authors and titles of these articles. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Frank Hairgrove; Douglas M. Mcleod, "Circles Drawing Toward High Risk Activism: The Use of Usroh and Halaqa in Islamist Radical Movements", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 31, Issue 5, May 2008, pages 399 - 411.
Abstract:
Kurzman (2004) argued that social movements research and Islamic studies “followed parallel trajectories, with few glances across the chasm that have separated them.” This article will illuminate one influential process that has relevance to both these areas, the use of small groups for the purpose or radical mobilization. Specifically, it examines the impact of the use of small Islamic study groups (usroh and halaqa) for fundamental and radical Islamic movements. Although small-group mobilization is not unique to Islam, the strategic use of these study groups empowered by the Islamic belief system has yielded significant returns in capacity building for high-risk activism.
The full text of this article by can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Malise Ruthven/How to Understand Islam/The New York Review of Books/November 8, 2007, Vol. LIV, No. 17
"Malise Ruthven reviews a series of recent books on Islam, among them John Kelsay's Arguing the Just War in Islam, Hans Küng's Islam: Past, Present and Future and Michael Bonner's Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice. All three deal with the question of whether Islam is actually a peaceful religion as Bush and Blair have insisted, or whether it doesn't sound the battle cry from the start. Ruthven fears the worst: 'Like it or not, these terrorist campaigns were inspired by the example of the Prophet's struggle - his just war- against the Quraysh, the pagan tribesmen of Mecca. In the context of the original conflict between the early Muslims and the Meccans, the sources, including the Koran and the narratives of Muhammad's life, suggest that 'fighting is an appropriate means by which Muslims should seek to secure the right to order life according to divine directives.' In militant readings of the Sharia, the historical precedents are not so much interpreted as applied".
Source: http://www.signandsight.com/features/1588.html/Magazine Roundup Tuesday, 2 October, 2007 (Scroll to 2 October, 2007).

From Malise Ruthven's review essay:
"... in a recent open letter to "Brother Osama," the prominent Saudi cleric Sheikh Salman al-Oadah makes a scathing attack on bin Laden for the excessive violence and damage to Islam inflicted by his campaign—including the "destruction of entire nations" and the "nightmare of civil war" in Afghanistan and Iraq, with their impact on the surrounding countries. But the sheikh's quarrel with bin Laden is essentially about means rather than ends. The burden of his attack is that al-Qaeda's methods—and the political fallout they engender—are counter-productive. Even if the radicals take power somewhere in the world, the sheikh writes, they will not have the experience or competence to govern in accordance with Islamic law. ...
... The Sharia is not so much a body of law but a field of discourse or platform for legal reasoning. Recently, it has become an arena for intellectual combat.

It is therefore open to question whether the hijackers and the terrorists automatically put themselves beyond the bounds of Islam by killing innocents, as statements by Bush, Blair, and dozens of Muslim leaders and scholars suggest. With no churches or formally constituted religious authorities to police the boundaries of Islam, the only universally accepted orthodoxy is the Sharia itself. But the Sharia is more of an ideal than a formally constituted body of law. While interpreting the law was once the province of the trained clerical class of ulama, any consensus governing its correct interpretation has broken down under pressure of regional conflicts and the influence of religious autodidacts whose vision of Islam was formed outside the received scholarly tradition".

Matthias Küntzel/Jew-Hatred and Jihad: The Nazi Roots of the 9/11 attack/Weekly Standard September 17, 2007, Vol. 013, Issue 01
Jeffrey Goldberg/Seeds of Hate/NYT Sunday Book Review January 6, 2008
A German scholar argues that Muslim anti-Semitism can be traced to a project of the Nazi Party. A review essay on Matthias Küntzel, Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 (Telos Press 2007). Read the first chapter of this book.

Joshua Muravchik & Charles Szrom/In Search of Moderate Muslims/Commentary, Vol. 125, No. 2, February, 2008
"When we speak of moderate Muslims as a counterweight to extremists, then, what we seek has nothing to do with the ardor of their religious convictions. Rather, it centers on the acceptance or rejection of pluralism. In this view, Muslims may still hope and pray for the eventual recognition by all mankind of the truth of Muhammad's message. (Christians and Jews do something similar.) But they may not take up the sword to hasten the advent of that goal or pursue disputes among or within countries by violent means. That implies democratic methods and a spirit of tolerance.
... But if this explains what we mean--or ought to mean--by moderate Muslims, where can we find them, and how can we tell the real thing?
... ... there are six questions to be asked of any such group.
Does it both espouse democracy and practice democracy within its own structures?
Does it eschew violence in pursuit of its goals?
Does it condemn terrorism?
Does it advocate equal rights for women?
Does it advocate equal rights for minorities?
Does it accept a pluralism of interpretations within Islam?
... Any group that meets these six criteria seems to us to merit support and cooperation, and groups that go a long way toward meeting them deserve at least a second look".

Tamara Cofman Wittes/Islamist Political Parties: Three Kinds of Movements, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No. 3, July 2008 (pdf)
See also: Tamara Cofman Wittes/Categories of Islamism/Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH), July 30, 2008
For comments on Tamara Cofman Wittes' analysis of Islamist political parties, see:
Michele Dunne on Categories of Islamism
Steven A. Cook on Categories of Islamism
Lee Smith on Categories of Islamism

b. Seyyid Qutb
Readings: Buruma & Margalit, pp. 101-149.
Frederick W. Kagan/The New Bolsheviks: Understanding Al Qadea/aei.org November 16, 2005

Recommended:
Sayed Khatab, "Hakimiyyah and jahiliyyah in the thought of Sayyid Qutb", Middle Eastern Studies, July 2002, Vol. 38.
This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Readings on Islam" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.
Book Notes: Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman (C-SPAN, June 22, 2003)
The Philosopher Of Islamic Terror (On Sayyid Qutb & Paul Berman's book Terror& Liberalism-with links)/disinfo.com
Links To Sayyid Qutb's Writings-"Milestones" & More online
Backgrounder On Sayyid Qutb - Links

On Seyyid Qutb in America, see: http://www.vagablogging.net/06-11/from-the-october-2006-issue-of-the-believer.html
See also: David Von Drehle/A Lesson In Hate: How an Egyptian student (Sayyid Qutb) came to study 1950s America and left determined to wage holy war/smithsonianmagazine.com/2006/february

Michael Scott Doran/The Saudi Paradox:The Schizophrenic Saudi State/Foreign Affairs/January-February 2004
"Saudi Arabia is in the throes of a crisis, but its elite is bitterly divided on how to escape it. Liberal reformers seek rapprochement with the West while others side with an anti-American Wahhabi religious establishment that has much in common with al Qaeda".
This Doran article can also be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Bernard Lewis/What Went Wrong?/The Atlantic Monthly/January 2002
The complete text of this Lewis article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. c. Jihad: Theory, Interpretation, & Practice
Readings: Berman, Chapters III, IV.
Mary Habeck/Knowing the Enemy:Jihad and Jihadism/Australia-Israel Review December 2006
Douglas E. Streusand/What Does Jihad Mean?/Middle East Quarterly/September 1997
Mark Gould/Understanding Jihad/Policy Review/February 2005
Irshad Manji/Soldiers of Allah/NYT Sunday Book Review January 6, 2008 - a review essay on John Kelsay, Arguing the Just War in Islam (Harvard 2007)

David Cook, "The Implications of Martyrdom Operations for Contemporary Islam", Journal of Regious Ethics, Vol. 32, Issue 1, Spring 2004, pp. 129-151.
This article by David Cook can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
David Cook/Anti-Semitic Themes in Muslim Apocolyptic and Jihadi Literature/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs No. 56, May 01, 2007

Pete Lentini, Muhammad Bakashmar, "Jihadist Beheading: A Convergence of Technology, Theology, and Teleology?", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 30, Issue 4, April 2007, pp. 303-325. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. (Note: Use the EBSCO data base and save to your desktop as a pdf file.)
Abstract:
Although contemporary jihadist terrorists are most well known for perpetrating operations that generate mass casualties, they also conduct violent acts that yield fewer victims, such as beheading hostages. Examining the religious and cultural contexts that surround jihadist beheadings, developments in new media, and drawing on examples from the Chechen Wars and the Iraq War, this article argues that jihadists have employed this tactic for a range of reasons, including obtaining ransom payments, hampering foreign investment, discrediting transitional states, and recruiting supporters. It also suggests that jihadists' beheading of their captives corresponds with aspects of cosmic war, particularly on how religious terrorists' desires to please a deity and secure a place of honor in the hereafter has devalued the lives of both captor and prisoner. Consequently, contemporary jihadist beheading is an outgrowth of the practice of terrorist hostage taking. As this article goes to press (February 2007) UK authorities disrupted a terrorist cell allegedly plotting to behead British Muslim soldiers who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to broadcast the filmed executions through jihadist websites. Journalists have described the intended beheadings and their dissemination as "Iraq-style." There is no doubt that jihadist beheading became more widely known as a result of the Iraq conflict. However, the beheadings in Iraq were largely used to recruit future jihadists and to demonstrate jihadists' strength to their potential support base, the global Muslim community. In contrast, the alleged UK beheading plot was aimed at striking terror into Muslims living in the UK so that they would not support or serve their government. Indeed the Iraq beheadings were intended to persuade, and the UK plot was intended to dissuade. These alleged activities suggest that contemporary jihadist beheading is not only an extension of hostage-taking, it is also an independently evolving terrorist tactic.

Edward Rothstein/Reconsidering the Role of the Warrior in our Post-Enlightenment World/NYT August 06, 2007
Edward Rothstein's reflections on Lee Harris/The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West (Basic Books 2007).
"... Harris argues that the modern view of how to vanquish enemies is based on false ideas: first, that history progresses; second, that it progresses toward greater influence of reason; and finally, that reason, through its powers, can overcome all opposition. Our smug disdain for the warrior, he suggests, is based on a mistaken view of the powers of modernity and the Enlightenment....
In Mr. Harris’s view these errors are affecting the crucial confrontations now taking place between jihadists and Western liberal culture. We keep straining, he says, to see terrorists as if they were just slightly more extreme versions of ourselves, reflecting our own convictions, as if the jihadist were advocating destruction in the name of a version of liberalism.
... Harris suggests that the jihadist is more accurately thought of as a fanatic, a warrior of the old school, whose technique has been remarkably successful over the centuries. Such warfare accepts no rules other than fealty to the tribe and accepts no compromise other than victory. Islam, he points out, has made 'permanent conquests in every part of the world into which it has expanded with only three exceptions: Spain, Sicily, and certain parts of the Balkans': three areas where Islamic fanaticism was confronted with opposing fanaticism.
... Harris argues that by failing to characterize Islamist warfare accurately, the West deludes itself, even employing another Enlightenment idea — tolerance — to grant harbor to those who seek to destroy it. And the West implicitly affirms that, in the end, reason will triumph".

See also Ayaan Hirsi Ali's review essay on Lee Harris, The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West @ Ayaan Hirsi Ali/Blind Faiths/NYT Sunday Book Review January 6, 2008. She maintains that the West’s “fanaticism of reason” is no match for the fanaticism of radical Islam.

For a brief indication of Lee Harris' own expression of his views on radical Islam, terrorism, and the Enlightenment, see:
Lee Harris/Mad Scientists: The disturbing lessons of the Doctors' Plot/City Journal Vol. 17, No. 3, Summer 2007.
From Lee Harris' essay: "This Enlightenment model, which has worked quite effectively in Europe and the United States, as well as in other parts of the world, has always relied on an advanced elite that brings learning to the masses through universal secular education. Many have hoped that Muslim nations would adopt the same model, with the same results. A minority of Muslim technocrats, who had received Western-style scientific educations, would help lead the Middle East into the modern era. They, too, would be eager to transcend their own narrow cultural perspectives, and to join other like-minded men and women across the globe.
... But if Westernized technocrats like the Glasgow terrorists and the London bombers can enthusiastically embrace radical Islam, what group is left that can bring about the modernization of the Middle East?"

For another view of radical Islam and reason, see: Riaz Hassan/The Jihad and the West-Part I/Yale Global online/September 21, 2006
"Jihad is ultimately political action that can be influenced by dialogue and negotiations".
Mohammad Ayoob/The Jihad and the West-Part II//Yale Global online/September 26, 2006
"Muslims could benefit by removing the word 'jihad' from the vocabulary of politics".

d. Jihadis: The Near Enemy, The Far Enemy, & Internal Debate
Readings: David C. Rapoport, "Sacred Terror: A Contemporary example from Islam", Chapter 7 in Reich (ed.) - See especially Rapoport's analysis of Abd Al-Salam Faraj, author of "The Neglected Duty", referring to jihad. Faraj coined the terms "near enemy" and "far enemy".
Recommended:
Fawaz A.Gerges/The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge University Press 2005)
Steve Coll/Young Osama:How he learned radicalism and may have seen America/The New Yorker/December 12 2005
Noah Feldman/ Islam, Terror & the Second Nuclear Age/NYT-Sunday Magazine/October 29, 2006
Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank/The Unraveling: Al Qaeda's Revolt Against bin Laden/The New Republic, June 11, 2008, Vol. 238, No. 4, 837, pp. 16-21
This article is also accessible at this location: http://www.peterbergen.com/bergen/articles/details.aspx?id=346.
See also: Lawrence Wright/The Rebellion Within: An Al Qaeda mastermind questions terrorism/The New Yorker, June 2, 2008

V. Suicide & Terrorism
1. An Overview
Readings: Hoffman, Chapter 5; Laqueur, Chapter 4; Bloom, Chapters 1 & 4.
Ariel Merari, "The Readiness to kill and die: Suicidal terrorism in the Middle East", Chapter 10 in Reich (ed.).
Yuki Tanaka/Japan's Kamkikaze Pilots and Contemporary Suicide Bombers: War and Terror/japanfocus.org September 25, 2005
Recommended Books:
Farhad Khosrokhavar/Suicide Bombers: Allah's New Martyrs (Pluto Press 2005-Translated from the original 2002 French editon)
Ami Pedahzur/Suicide Terrorism (Polity Press 2005)

2. The Logic Of Suicide Terrorism
Readings:
Robert A. Pape/The Strategic Logic Of Suicide Terrorism/American Political Science Review(pdf)August 2003/danieldrezner.com
The Pape article can also be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
For a critique of Pape's article, including a challenge to Pape's conclusion, see: Martin Kramer's remarks in his web log @
Political Science Targets Suicide Terrorism. Bystanders: Take Cover! "Robert Pape's analysis is solid. Just his data and conclusions are flawed."
See also: Jonathan Kay, "Numbers Racket" - Review Essay on Pape's The Stratgic Logic Of Suicide Terrorism, Commentary, September 2005.
This article can be accessed @ http://www.omnivore.org/jon/orwell/2005/Pape/Pape.htm
For another critique of Robert Pape's article and some additional observations concerning factors contributing to suicide terrorism, see:
Scott Atran/The Moral Logic and Growth of Suicide Terrorism/The Washington Quarterly, Spring 2006, Vol. 29, No. 2. (pdf)

See also:
Scott Ashworth, Joshua D. Clinton, Adam Meirowitz, and Kristopher W. Ramsay/Design, Inference, and the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism/American Political Science Review April 23, 2008, Vol. 102, No. 2. (pdf)
Abstract
In The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Robert Pape (2003) presents an analysis of his suicide terrorism data. He uses the data to draw inferences about how territorial occupation and religious extremism affect the decision of terrorist groups to use suicide tactics. We show that the data are incapable of supporting Pape 'sconclusions because he “samples on the dependent variable.”—The data only contain cases in which suicide terror is used. We construct bounds (Manski, 1995) on the quantities relevant to Pape's hypotheses and show exactly how little can be learned about the relevant statistical associations from the data produced by Pape's research design.

For comments on this critique, see: http://www.themonkeycage.org/2008/04/reassessing_the_strategic_logi.html @ the Political Science blog http://www.themonkeycage.org/.
"To know whether X causes suicide terrorism, we need to know how the propensity to use suicide terrorism varies with X. That is, we not only need data on when suicide terrorism occurs, we need data on when suicide terrorism does not occur — i.e., when groups choose other tactics besides suicide terrorism. Analyzing only instances when suicide terrorism occurred is not sufficient.
... Ashworth et al. conclude:
The data Pape collects do not speak to the correlates of suicide terror, and the policy conclusions he advocates cannot be justified by appealing to the data he collects".

For Robert A. Pape's reply to this critique, see:
Robert A. Pape/Methods and Findings in the Study of Suicide Terrorism/American Political Science Review May 2, 2008, Vol. 102, No. 2. (pdf)
Abstract
Scott Ashworth, Joshua Clinton, Adam Meirowitz, and Kristopher Ramsay (2008) allege that I have committed the sin of sampling on the dependent variable by considering only the universe of suicide terrorist attacks rather than the universe of all imaginable instances when potential or actual terrorists might have committed suicide attacks, and so cannot measure the effects of any independent variables. They go on to describe a method that they say I should have used, which is not of interest because the accusation that is supposed to motivate this discussion is inaccurate.

The main claim—that my work on suicide terrorism samples on the dependent variable—is simply wrong. Indeed, the authors paid no attention to the large portions of my recent book that explain what we know about factors that make resort to suicide terrorist campaigns more or less likely, and how we know it. Hence, this letter is mainly devoted to updating Ashworth, Clinton, Meirowitz, and Ramsay on my work. I also make a few comments about the general question of whether concerns about “sample bias” should carry significant weight when dealing with the complete universe of a phenomenon, as is the case in my work on suicide terrorism.

Bruce Hoffman/The Logic Of Suicide Terrorism/The Atlantic Monthly/June 2003
"The perceived randomness of suicide bombings is in large part responsible for the emotional suffering that they inflict on society. But the planners of these attacks use a strategy that is anything but random: they aim to relentlessly shrink to nothing the areas in which people can move freely".
The complete text of this Hoffman article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.

Bruce Hoffman; G. H. McCormick, "Terrorism, Signaling, & Suicide Attack", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, July-August 2004, Vol. 27, Issue 4.
This article by Hoffman and McCormick can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

David Bukay/The Religious Foundations of Suicide Bombings: Islamist Ideology/Middle East Quarterly Fall 2006

Recommended:
David Brooks/The Culture Of Martyrdom:How Suicide Bombing Became Not Just A Means But An End/The Atlantic Monthly/June 2002
The complete text of this Brooks article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
Egyptian Muftu's Opinions On Suicide Bombings & Jihad/Memri /October 01, 2003

Andrea Elliott/Where Boys Grow Up to Be Jihadis (a small neighborhood in the Moroccan city of Tetouan)/NYT Sunday Magazine, November 25, 2007
Many of the men involved in the Madrid train bombings came from one small neighborhood in the Moroccan city of Tetouan. A number of would-be suicide bombers in Iraq are from there, too.

"Since the start of the war, a few thousand foreign jihadis have heeded the call to join militant networks in Iraq. Most are men in their 20s. Typically, they fall under the influence of an imam who helps them contact intermediaries for the insurgents in Iraq, the American official told me. They go off expecting to fight a heroic battle but often find out after arriving in Iraq that they are to be deployed instead on suicide missions targeting other Muslims, the official said. Based on the accounts of captured fighters, even when they protest, they are sometimes given no choice. 'At the end of the day, nobody cares about these kids,' the official said. 'They are Al Qaeda precision-guided munition.' ...

The numbers of foreign fighters entering Iraq have dropped substantially since this spring, the official said, at least in part because would-be jihadis have become more aware that the majority of suicide attacks are aimed at other Muslims. Military officials also gleaned information from the raid in September that indicates a shift: fewer jihadis are coming from Saudi Arabia, while more are arriving from North Africa, an estimated 40 percent of the roughly 60 to 75 fighters who land in Iraq every month. The shift happened in the summer of 2006, when the first men from Jamaa Mezuak began leaving for Iraq. ...
None of them, it appears, left behind videos explaining their decisions, as is common for suicide bombers in some Arab countries. There are no posters in the neighborhood exalting them". (Boldface added)

Katrin Bennhold/A Grandfather's Suicide Bombing Puzzles Algerians/NYT December 18, 2007
"The case of Rabah Bechla casts doubt on the practice of profiling. As a prominent Algerian journalist observed, If a grandfather can blow himself up, anyone can".
Michael Slackman/In Algeria, a Tug of War for Young Minds [w/photos & links to related stories]/NYT June 23, 2008

3. Case Studies of Suicide Terrorism
a. Palestinian Suicide Bombing
Readings: Laqueur, Chapter 5; Bloom, Chapter 2.
Shaul Kimhi and Shmuel Even/Who are the Palestinian Suicide Terrorists?/Jaffee Center For Strategic Studies/Tel Aviv University/Sept. 2003, Vol. 6, No. 2. Benjamin T. Acosta/The Palestinian Culture of Martyrdom and Shahid: Providing The Model For 21st Century Islamic Terrorism/asmeascholars.org/April 2008 Conference Paper

b. Suicide Attacks in Sri Lanka
Readings: Bloom, Chapter 3.

c. Kurdish Suicide Terrorism in Turkey
Readings: Bloom, Chapter 5.

VI. Women & Terrorism
1. Women's Role in Secular & Religious Terrorism
Readings: Cindy D. Ness, "In the Name of the Cause: Women's Work in Secular and Religious Terrorism", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, September 2005, Vol. 28: 353-373. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
This article can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Anat Berko, Edna Erez, "Gender, Palestinian Women, and Terrorism: Women's Liberation or Oppression?", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 30, Issue 6, June 2007, pp. 493-519. This article can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required. (Note: Use the EBSCO data base and save to your desktop as a pdf file.)
Abstract:
Prior literature on women's participation in terrorism has paradoxically interpreted this involvement as a sign of women's newfound empowerment, and as an indication of ongoing gender oppression. The study examines the hypothesis that Palestinian women's involvement in terrorism indicates women's liberation. The data are derived from in-depth interviews with fourteen women who were detained or incarcerated in Israeli prisons for security offenses. The interviews shed light on the women's pathways to terrorism, the roles that they play in terrorist activity, and the aftermath of their security offenses within Palestinian society and culture. The study underlines the "no return" option and "no win" situation that Palestinian women who embark on terrorist activities encounter. The results demonstrate that although some women became involved in terrorism due to the sense of liberation that it provided, the women largely became disempowered in the aftermath of their offenses; rather than receiving praise for their activism as they had expected, they were shunned by others for their violation of gender expectations, and failure to fulfill traditional gender roles. The social and personal costs of involvement in terrorism for Palestinian women are analyzed, and policy implications of the findings for theory and practice are discussed.

Jolande Withuis/Suffer, fight, become a saint/signandsight.com June 12, 2007 (An essay on women and terrorism.)
"Muslima terrorism – to many this new word will sound like a contradiction in terms. This is an erroneous and dangerously naive response. The common association of women with peacefulness and harmony is a myth. Although it is quite rare for women to carry out terrorist attacks, the phenomenon is not new. (boldface added)
... Regardless of how different their respective cultures were, politics was traditionally the domain of men in all of the cultures. Women were excluded and as they were also considered to have no interest in politics, they had to prove, more than their male counterparts, their commitment and loyalty to the cause. More than that: to be allowed to participate at all, they also had to prove their courage, loyalty and competence to those sceptical and sexist brothers-in-arms, and refute the expectation that they would probably desert or fail. And there you have it: the pathway to taking it one step further.
... Political and spiritual female radicalism has a long tradition in which a pattern can be distinguished. (boldface added)
... We should not overestimate the importance of the ancient texts in order to understand what is going on around us. The answer is not in the texts of Islam, but rather in how they are interpreted and in how they are used. It would be an illusion to think that we can find answers by studying the Koran, and a misunderstanding that we cannot comprehend anything without studying it. As a person radicalizes, the pure doctrine unmistakably becomes an obsession, but never without mediation: it always requires opportunistic interpretations and teachers. Women do not have enough power to push through a new interpretation as pure doctrine.
... Muslim fundamentalism is gender fundamentalism. Muslima terrorism is complex in that it concerns a faith that focuses on the global (and also smaller-scale) preservation of patriarchal power, while at the same time there are women who want to use this patriarchal faith to emancipate themselves, and who are even willing to resort to acts of terrorism. Based on the same ambiguity it could be appealing for their male brothers to "allow" their "sisters" to participate in the jihad, i.e.: use the women to aid terrorists or even for suicide attacks". (boldface appears in the essay)

2. Women in Jihad
Readings: David Cook, "Women Fighting in Jihad?", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, September 2005, Vol. 28: 375-384.
Anne Nivat, "The Black Widows: Chechen Women Join the Fight for Independence - and Allah", Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, September 2005, Vol. 28: 413-419.
These articles can be accessed @ Locating Periodicals @ Texas State University Library. A valid Texas State University User Name and Password are required.
These articles can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html. Scroll to section on "Terrorism" and look for the author and title of this article. This location is password protected. Password and user name for access will be provided to students in the course.

Farhana Ali/Rocking the Cradle to Rocking the World: The Role of Muslim Female Fighters/Journal of International