• textbooks fail to mention the widespread support for Nazism in the US dufing the 1930's. 
  
• Yaphank, LI
• taking the train out to LI to go to Camp Ziegfried

Tamil Tigers

• Sri Lanka
• 1st suicide attack in 1987
• prime minister in 1991
• Marxist organization
• completely secular
• more suicide bombings than any other group in the world
• Goal is to create a Tamil state in Sri Lanka
• Key point here is that there is nothing religious about their intentions.

Brennan: would you limit your definition to include only humans and not infrastructure?

Schels: Your definition would also include the likes of John Brown in much the same way that McVeigh would be included. 

• considered to be a terrorist by everyone except the abolitionists
• compares it to the early Zionists.(Begin)

Schels: uses a combative notion--is it justifiable terrorism?  Is he a freedom fighter?

Suicide Car Bombings in Iraq:

• What do they tell us about Iraqi society?
• history of democracy in Iraq before the Bathhist rule
• large majority are pro-democracy or anti-sectarian
• There is a tradition of legal precedent in Iraq that is not publicized or covered in the media?
• This brings up the question for me of Media Bias.  What sells the news? 
  
• No suicide bombings in Iraq before the US Invasion of 2003.
• His students are reading blogs of Iraqi students
  
• Get those blogs for our notes.
• Elections are being won by non-sectarian parties.

Chechnya
Female Suicide Bombers

• indicator that terrorism is the weapon of the weak.
• Not only a male process, or not a process of the traditional

Why Become Terrorists?

• Poverty: poor predictor
• Fareed Zakaria
• Robert Pape 
• Well-educated and secular according to Zakaria
• Pape: foreign forces moving groups off their soil.
  
• Bad foreign policy move: disband Iraqi army in 2003.
  
• West Bank
• Chechnya
• Iraq
• Sri Lanka

Panel Discussion on April 13th: Afghanistan and Pakistan at Rutgers

Olivier Roy Globalized Islam.

• Breakdown of agriculture in most societies: urbanizing has its effects on the populace of these countries.  No infrastructure or job placements.
• those able to get an education that provides them with a skills-based education
• No critical thinking skills
• rote learning; don't question authority
• concrete skills

This makes some great sense here; it's a form of social control so that no discussions of inequity occur.  Saudi government uses elements of religion that is not related to Islam to keep a tight lid on the flow of ideas in the country.

Bernie: Article from Saudi Arabia about 75-year old woman getting jailed for a religious act.

Ari: compares the Saudis behavior to that of buying indulgences.

Education and Empowerment

• doesn't always support democratic values
• if it's not related to the ideas of "hope for the future," element in society
• If there's no hope, education does not matter. (powerlessness and fear)
  
• Terrorism usually appeals to the middle class.
• This is about the politicization of religion. 
  
• take elements of religion and move them to nefarious ends.
• ecumenical: Gandhi, King
• Empowerment: martyrdom,
  

What's coming up:

• weaknesses: rigidity of ideology
• factionalizing
• lack of sophistication to deal with "nuance"
• that is good.
• social control
  
• arbitrary laws are meant for control purposes, but don't reflect actual Islamic values
• alienation of people
• Olivier Roy:
• Islamo-nationalism from trans-national Islam
• spectacle without plans for follow-through
• media savvy

Message here is an example of empowerment.  This strikes me as a direct analogy to American teens.

Jones: Isn't there a direct political end they seek?  Don't they want troops off of their soil?

Davis: Goals are way too macro: uses the example of the Pashtuns wanting to control the whole of Afghanistan, but what then? 

Increasingly, young people are competing for power in order to form societies that adhere to Islamic societal rules.

Alternative Narratives: let's give our students several alternatives

Brennan: where are you seeing this unidimensional students?

• seeing this students who is not a poli-sci student, but rather someone who is taking this course as a means to fulfilling an equipment.
• sophomores, juniors

The internet does not mean "globally savvy."

Videos, Iraqui Youth:

Give our students tools to make them feel empowered: this has to do with all of our conversation recently with the development of our new electives.  Make them actionable.

Iraqi Student blogs

• http://iraq-iraqis.blogspot.com/
• davis@poliscie.rutgers.edu
• I emailed him asking for some of his resources regarding contacts with students and teachers from Iraq.

Can We Win the War on Terror?
Title reminds me of this presentation by Thomas Barnett at TED .  Definitely worth watching to compare the ideas and strategies.

Islamic Groups:
Two types:

• Nation-focused; want to control where they live.
• Diffuse, psychosocially influenced groups like al-Queda.
• no idea how to achieve their political ends

New ideas in Egypt, et. al. whereby young parliamentarians in Muslim groups break from the traditional leadership and form coalitions with secular groups in order to gain a foothold in a democracy. 

• split between young members of Islamic groups and the older leadership of the parties.

Comparison between Trotsky and Stalin

• Stalin was palatable and made sense
• Trotsky was more diffuse and ethereal; people could not relate.
• similar to the premise behind al-Queda.

Pashtun Peoples : primary ethnic group that makes up the Taliban.
Drugs:


Schels: "What has al-Queda done since 2001?" what have we done to curtail their ability to attack?

• are we underestimating their abilities because of their lull?

Davis: even though they may be capable of another attack, they still lack the capacity to cripple the U.S. Government.

What does it take to "Win" the war on terror?

• Obama's switch from "war on terror," to "war on terrorist organizations."
• semantic shift is important.
• it takes the term terrorism away from a wide area and focuses on smaller terrorist groups that represent smaller segments of whole populations.
• Not an "us" and "them" issue.
• Militarily
• Davis is in favor of cutting edge military
• however, extensive planning, or a plan for recovery is necessary, which is where these other factors of economics and education come in.
  
• Economic Factors
• 65% of Iraqi population is under 25. 
  
• economic indicators are huge in determining whether or not young people strap on suicide bomb kits.
• hopelessness due to economic conditions
• looking to afterlife as the only option that can offer any hope.
• www.usip.org United States Institute for Peace.
• Equates the breakdown of the agrarian society and the movement to urban centers, to the same type of situation in American cities with gangs.
• Empowerment
• it depends on how we do this
• we can do this through education and economic forces. He quotes the Ricks article from 2006
• people can gain control
• Parallels to our own society

When will we know this is over?
Obama gave one of his first interviews to Al-Arabbia.

• huge ratings in the Arab world.

Can Democracy cure Terrorism?
Public opinion polls in Iraq show that the citizens want the same rights as Americans

• this coupled with the increase in job prospects is something that the Obama admin must continue.

"Why do they Hate us?"

• sympathy for US has grown among the Arab world since 2004.
• Look at the examples of Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Egypt.
• Links to certain government protests through social networking.  Samantha Shapiro's article in nytimes: "Revolution, Facebook Style "

Who joins terrorist organizations?

• there has to be reasons why some disaffected people join radical parties, oppositional parties, and some resort to violence?
• state department must force governments to allow oppositional parties.

Drivers of Terrorism

• unemployment
• need to develop jobs for the disaffected
• We need a new Marshall Plan that aims at the Middle East
• Demographics:
• unemployment as high as 70%
• most of the population (60%) is under 25.

Middle Class terrorism
Poverty and social change are a bad mix.  Urbanized and jobless.  That makes things really bad. 

• I am wondering where he is going with the dichotomy of the education: science and math (absolute) v. humanities, history, and social sciences.
• we must push higher level thinking skills upon our visitors and when we help build the infrastructure in these authoritarian regimes.
• Liberal education

Arab-Israeli dispute

• this frames the attitude towards the US more than anything else.
• We are not partial 

Images

• what are we framing this as?  Showing images from news services is often prejudicial.
• History Begins at Sumer, by Sidney Noah Kramer.  Arabic Firsts.
• Iraq needs a PR makeover
• Iraq Flickr search link.   Over 250,000 images of modern and ancient Iraq.
• Jawad Salim: Peasants
• Reclamation of blast walls by youth culture.
• Great group of photographers that document world architecture and landscape.
  

Neighborhood effect

How are we to blame for the rise of violence in Iraq?

• looting after the 5 days in April of 2003.
• message sent to Iraqis that they didn't matter, nor did their cultural heritage.
• Images from the museum are insane. 
  
• Disbanded the army
• ripped through the public sector.
• pulled back the subsidies to farmers
• led to urbanization

Fighting Terrorism
Our most powerful weapon is the history of that culture

• public diplomacy
• build local social capital of the Iraqis
• leverage the American Muslim community to aid in the reconstruction
• 
  

Hood: Is it not a tenet somewhere in Islam that there is inherent violence? 
Davis points back to his points about using religion to mobilize people politically (Gandhi, King, etc.) but they did it in an ecumenical way.



Hood: questions the statistics of military sign ups:
some stats on military personnel.

Brennan: How do we gain access to these students or these focus groups?  We have students that would be interested in this.

Hood:  Was it a mistake to disband the Iraqi Army?
Oh yes.

Schels: Who canned Garner?

Schels: Do the Iraqis see us as occupiers?
Sunnis do not want them to go.  They need to have them for security due to historic dependence on foreigners for protection.

Brennan: Isn't this predictable due to the historical and geographical influence?