Today's Wild Geese: Foreign Fighters in the GWOT

[davidbfpo]

A German story, albeit reported in The Scotsman:

GERMAN intelligence sources have revealed how a group of Islamist radicals discovered the path of Holy War was more difficult than they supposed. The nine would-be terrorists travelled, with two women, from Germany to Afghanistan in 2009 in a bid for glory.

(Later)They were also alienated by the experienced Uzbek fighters they had been taken on by, dispelling their notions of Islamic unity.

Link:http://www.scotsman.com/news/Wouldbe...war.6587573.jp

Yes, "spin" from Germany, but accords with other independent reports on the reality volunteers find upon joining the global Jihad.

[Bob's World]

Best to focus on the aspects of a problem within one's control

Causation rests primarily with the Government; Motivation comes from elsewhere.

As an example, within the states the Tea Party drives the Obama administration mad, but for the policies of the Obama administration, there would be no Tea Party. They attack the symptom, but don't ask; 'What is it about our approach to governance that leaves this segment of the populace feeling that they must organize and challenge us?"

The big benefit on this particular example is that those who join the Tea Party still have hope. Not the hope offered by the Administration in it's campaign bid, but the hope that comes with the certainty that the Constitutional guarantees of term limits, their right to vote, the timeline of when elections will be held, the knowledge that the President will not call upon the military to thwart the will of the people, etc. This is why the US can absorb a lot more causation than other countries can.

Motivation is another factor. This gets to ideology, recruiting, etc. But just as a wet forest is hard to burn, a well governed populace is hard to motivate to act out illegally to challenge government.

Germany must ask itself why it, of all non Muslim European states provides the most foreign fighters to Afghanistan? May be closely related to the fact that Turkey is a major source of foreign fighters there as well.

[Jedburgh]

INEGMA, 8 Nov 10: Conduits to Terror - Classifying the Methods of Jihadist and Middle Eastern Terrorist Recruitment

...From the perspective that people are the core of any organizations’ sustainable achievement, and that manpower is a critical success factor for terrorists, this report will investigate the recruiting and training methods and trends in terrorist organizations of the Middle East and Central Asia. The source of much disagreement today is whether recruitment is driven by a central leadership structure or more “bottom-up” in that actors self-radicalize and carry out an attack....

[Bob's World]

I realize "terrorist organizations" rolls off the tongue easier than "unofficial political organizations employing terrorist tactics where denied legal venues to affect change"; but it sure muddies the water.

Terrorism is a tactic. It is time to stop describing organizations by their tactics and begin recognizing them by their purpose.

"For want of a nail" the war was lost. Today it appears to be for want of a word.