Terrorist Recognition Handbook

Ben Rothke writes "There are two types of writers about terrorism, experts such as Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson who write from a distance and others that write graphic tales of first-hand from the trenches war stories. Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities, is unique in that author Malcolm Nance is a 20-year veteran of the U.S. intelligence community and writes from a first hand-perspective, but with the organization and methodology of writers such as Pipes and Emerson. Those combined traits make the book extraordinarily valuable and perhaps the definitive text on terrorist recognition." Read below for the rest of Ben's review Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities, Second Edition author Malcolm Nance pages 480 publisher CRC rating 10 reviewer Ben Rothke ISBN 978-1420071832 summary Perhaps the definitive text on terrorist recognition.

Comments

Re:The Sad Part

[Anonymous Coward]

An even sadder part is that I doubt the average TSA employee can actually read.

Terrorists, noun

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorists are labeled by the party in power. Each country has its own 'terrorists'.

Terrorist: An agent of a sub-national group who uses premeditated, politically motivated violence against non-combatant targets

I would add "violence" or "physical harm" to that defition.

I am strongly opposed to many laws and the politics of many countries including the US. I have YET to use violence against any target, including civilians.

In my opinion war should be fought against the military and exclude civilians, if at all possible. I understand collateral damage, but I don't approve of it as just an excuse.

Belonging to my particular faith is seen by treason and/or terrorism by some governments.

Re:thousands of lives could have been saved

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean those families of suicide bombers that Saddam was paying weren't the families of suicide bombers? Or do you mean that everyone knew that Saddam hadn't actually used chemical weapons on his own people?

State Terrorism is a far greater threat

[MrSteveSD]

Although 911 had a high death toll, groups like Al Qaeda couldn't possibly hope to match states when it comes to killing civilians. The Indonesian government used widespread terrorism against it's own people and those of East Timor with a death toll of several hundred thousand. Of course, today we are interested in not only the perpetrators of the terror, but those that support them. In the case of Indonesia under Suharto, the supporters were countries like the US and UK who supplied arms knowing full well what they were being used for.

Then of course there is the famous case of US support for terrorism in Nicaragua, for which the country was condemned by the World Court. The death toll was around 50,000. One of the things the US was condemned for in that case was the mining of Nicaraguan harbours, putting civilian shipping in danger. If Al Qaeda did the same thing, it would be immediately recognised as a terrorist act.

Daniel Pipes?

[tfoss]

experts such as Daniel Pipes Just so we're clear, this is the daniel pipes who started the Middle East Forum ("one of a number of hardline neoconservative think tanks devoted to promoting a broad war on terror focused on the Middle East.") and its offspring, Campus Watch (a group intended to monitor middle east studies on college campuses, in a rather mccarthy-like manner). The one who has been a consistent warmonger (from vietnam onward). The one who wrote in The National Review:

"Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene...All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most."

Who the New York Times referred to as the leader of an "organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life"

Just so we know who we are labeling with the sterile description of "expert."

-Ted

Anti- vs Counter-terrorism

[spook brat]

Counter-terrorism == work to stop terrorist operations

Anti-terrorism == work to kill the terrorists themselves

Perhaps the usage has changed since I went to my CT training courses in the U.S. Army, but I really, REALLY hope that the TSA isn't conducting anti-terrorism operations! "Sorry, you're on the no-fly list, please step into the euthanasia chamber to your right..."

Re:Daniel Pipes? An expert? Feh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know Daniel Pipes.

http://www.mpac.org/article.php?id=72

Re:thousands of lives could have been saved

[robotbebop]

The insurgency in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism, The insurgents use the same methods, but it's not terrorism, it's guerrilla warfare. It's what happens when you go into a country and completely erase it's government: Power vacuum. And there's a lot of people in the middle east who would love to rule Iraq, or see it erased off the face of the earth.

Daniel Pipe is an expert on propaganda

[sien]

Daniel Pipes founded Campus Watch an organisation dedicated to making sure that Americans only get a rabidly pro-Israel view in a McCarthyesque way, i.e. lists of those who disagree with his own fascist views.

He favours profiling and internment of Muslims in the United States.

The Daniel Pipes entry at sourcewatch is quite a read.

Re:Daniel Pipe is an expert on propaganda

[afabbro]

You realize, of course, that SourceWatch is about as unbiased as WorldNetDaily...so I take anything I read there with a...on second thought, why bother to read it.

Re:Terrorism must first be defined

[gurps_npc]

There IS a clear, simple definition of terrorism. I paraphrase, from the CIA:

A terroist action is an action in which combatants actively TARGET non-combatants with physical harm (i.e. civilians, not other soldiers), for political purposes.

Please note that this definition of terrorism:

1. Does NOT include the majority of rebels, freedom fighters, or other revolitionaries thar are respected.

2. Does not include wars.

3. DOES include the CIA itself, as they have admitted to targetting noncombatants in the past.

4. Does include most famous terrorist actions, including the crashing into the World Trade Center.

5. Does not include certain famous actions called terroism by the media, such as dingy attack on the USS Cole. (Cripes man, trying to seek a warship should not be called terrorism. It should be called STUPID.)

6. Does leave certain things to argue about, such as the craahing of the plane into the Pentagon. The pentagon is a military target and the civilians on the plane could be called 'ancillary casulaties', as opposed to being the target of the attack.

This definition does not in any way that I can tell have a geopolitical agenda. As it specifically describes certain actions done by the agency that created it as terrorist actions.