The Victimology of Terrorism

Are today's London bombings the work of al Qaeda or are they the work of copycats? And does it really matter?


The real war isn't being fought with bombs anyway. The real war is being fought over the minds of the people of the West, which must on balance be in favor of fighting back. It is not our ability to win this war that is in question, but our willingness to prosecute it. The Cox and Forkum post that accompanies the excellent cartoon above is worth a read in that respect because it unites commentary made by Mark Steyn and Robert Tracinski that addresses the essential problem faced in this war: What does the West stand for that we should defend her? Steyn points out that Britain, to inspire loyalty, must be about more than fish and chips, but he fails to suggest what that might be. Tracinski then picks up where he left off.

Britain has to decide what ideas it stands for -- and as with the rest of Europe, this is a task for which British culture is unprepared. This is the great advantage that America has: we don't have to search for a non-racial identity, because we are a nation explicitly founded on an idea.

That's the philosophical and political angle. For more of that, see this excellent roundup over at Ego.

But might there be a psychological angle as well? Much has been written (good and bad) about the psychological profiles of terrorists, but might that line of inquiry be profitable for the victims of terrorism? In today's NRO, Ted Lapkin writes about the widespread denial on the part of an important subset of the victims, the anti-war Left, in "Battered Left Syndrome." This is a must-read.

The aftermath of the London terrorist bombings has demonstrated that the antiwar Left is severely afflicted by the political equivalent of battered-wife syndrome. With each new beating, the scarred and bruised victims of spousal abuse tend to excuse and rationalize the actions of their tormentors. A stubborn unwillingness to accept the proposition that their partners are violent louts plunges these woeful women into a morass of self-deception that spawns only further violence.

The far Left has similarly proved unable to liberate itself from the web of rose-tinted delusions that it has spun about the nature of Islamic extremism. After each al Qaeda outrage, leftist ideologues are quick to castigate their own countrymen for a catalogue of sins, both real and imagined. With a perverse combination of self-loathing and adoration of the enemy, the radical Leftist mantra preaches that if only we were nicer, the jihadists could not fail to love us. It's our own fault if Osama bin Laden doesn't realize what good people we are.

Interesting. If anyone in the West is to blame for the continuing existence of terrorism, it is, ironically, those who scream "It's our fault!" the loudest. They evade the brutishness of the enemy and enable him to continue his abuse by endlessly rationalizing his choices. These rationalizations undercut our resolve to fight back, making us pull punches and increasing the chances that we will surrender outright.

Update: Australia's John Howard: definitely not a "battered wife". (This, but for its gratuitous solicitousness to Islam at the end, is superb!)

-- CAV