Hoffman vs. Sageman: Myth of Grassroots Terrorism

[SteveMetz]

Hi Tom,



A number of years ago, I looked at the welfare system in Ontario and realized that it was set up to keep people on welfare in part as a way of increasing the demand for social workers (and growing government departments budgets). This has a very familiar ring to it .

It's hard for any organization (or parent for that matter) to define their own irrelevance as their strategic objective. Imagine if the mission statement of the U.S. military was to create a world where it was no longer needed!

[marct]

It's hard for any organization (or parent for that matter) to define their own irrelevance as their strategic objective. Imagine if the mission statement of the U.S. military was to create a world where it was no longer needed!

Have you been reading my mind, Steve ?!?!?

Oh, I do agree with you; it's almost impossible for any organization, at least if it uses the rational-legal bureaucratic framework as its organizational genotype, to define its mission as eliminating the need for it.

[slapout9]

Last Sunday the military ch. had a program about Private Armies and of course the PMC Exective Outcomes came up and how good-fast-and cheap they were. Which is the very reason they became such a threat to conventional country based militaries. During the interview of their former CEO about every other word was "we were unconventional in our approach to the problem." Don't know how true everything he said was but I think there are some lessons to be learned