We've been studying different causes of terrorism this semester, so I found it very interesting to read the results of a study done that states that Australia anti-terrorism tactics might actually cause terrorism.
The study states that all too often the Australian police are so aggressive in their tactics that they can actually cause Muslims to radicalize and turn to terrorism.
One research said that the current "the more aggressive the better" line of reasoning is actually doing more harm then good, and a community-based approach would be much more effective.
Check out the article here
5 comments:
One of the comments to the article says that the aggressive actions are turning good people to terrorism. I don't think that's true. I just can't believe that aggressive police actions would turn people who had no radical inclinations before to joining with the terrorist. It would take some really brutal actions to turn me against the government. As far as I know, Australia hasn't been THAT bad. Have they? If not, it's more likely that these new terrorists had radical leanings before the police started their crackdown.
Obviously this would not turn individuals who are content and happy to terrorism. However, I can definitely agree that those individuals who are feeling repressed and upset by the treatment of government officials and others being pushed over the edge by the horrible treatment of the police officers. After feeling repressed and discriminated against it would not take very much to push a person over the edge, especially if they had already had feelings revenge. While I can't imagine them pushing good upstanding individuals to terrorism it is not a very far stretch of the imagination to believe that brutal force pushes people over the edge to terrorism.
I think this article points out typical media bias. First, what do they mean be aggressive or hardline? The article gives no specific examples. It also does not take the time to provide a link to whole report of the group. Where do these young Muslim men live that they are talking about? Are they in Australia, or other parts of the world? What do they mean by radicalism? I thought the article did a poor job of the reporting the actual facts and a great job of finding a statment from an organization that they could use to make thier own point of view look more realistic.
Here here on what Charles said. The media generally likes to assume that it's the government's fault anywhere that terrorists are recruiting and finding new ways of convincing young men (and in some cases, handicapped women) to blow themselves up for the cause. Some people might assume that a "brutal" tactic by the Aussies is random questioning on the street, etc. And the picture in the article seems misleading also- that shows them invading a training facility, not a n actual home- I doubt the training facility dummies mind too much.
The general premise is true. In fact if we take a little time to recall tactics of terrorists, and the response of counter terrorism to a perceived threat this seems a lot like indirect action.
Regardless of specific examples, if police and anti-terrorism forces do repress suspected citizens harshly this could easily radicalize those who are on the edge. It also could cause there to be more lawsuits, protests and outrage against the government. So, if it truly is bad, which I tend to doubt, liberal society will address it and the situation will improve.
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