A timely commentary by a British academic on the dangers in linking every violent act by a mentally ill person to being a terrorist attack. A key phrase:Link (beware it may be behind a pay wall):http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...do-isils-work/Yet you are twenty times more likely to die by drowning in your bathtub than in a terrorist act, and a thousand times more likely to die in a road accident. So why, given these statistics, is terrorism so effective? The core reason is that its shocking randomness makes us feel that we can’t do much to protect ourselves – in other words, we feel out of control.
(Later) Terrorism is essentially a tool of mass psychological manipulation – less of the terrorists themselves than of us, the population of ordinary people who are to be terrorized.
There is a separate thread on Mental Health & Terrorism, but the quote is an introduction to a three linked articles by David Wells, a former Australian-UK SIGINT worker, in the Australian Lowy Institute's e-briefing and now on his own website.
He tries to answer a "wicked" problem and I have adapted his words: how can government(s) maintain and increase emotional resilience against the fear of future terrorist activity, regardless of whether this activity occurred.
The context is Australian, but his outlook is global.
Part One:https://counterterrorismmatters.word...rorism-part-1/
Part Two considers communication strategies:https://counterterrorismmatters.word...rorism-part-2/
Part Three:https://counterterrorismmatters.word...rorism-part-2/
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