Studies on radicalization & comments

[Dayuhan]

As to the quote you posted here; the point that was getting to is my belief that what I call the "Pied Piper Theory of Insurgency," that some dynamic leader with a powerful ideology can engage a well governed populace and lead them into insurgency is a Fairy Tale. Certain individuals like our own nut job "Jihad Jane"? Sure. But not the populace in a way sufficiently to create insurgency..

Agreed; no "pied piper" is going to generate the depth and breadth of resentment and hostility needed to initiate or sustain an insurgency. Generating enough to sustain a terrorist movement that requires only a relatively small base of intensely radicalized individuals is another matter altogether.

Why do members of these many separate growing insurgencies travel to be foreign fighters to counter US efforts; why do members of these insurgencies conduct acts of terror on US and US interests? Why is the US threatened far more today by the populaces of our allies than by any other source?????

I have yet to see any evidence that either foreign fighters or AQ terrorists act as "members of insurgencies", unless we are to embrace the "global insurgency" notion, which I personally find insupportable.

I do not agree that the US is threatened by the populaces of our allies. I don't think the US is threatened by any populace at all, but by a group of radicalized individuals recruited from many populaces (including our own) but neither representing nor acting on behalf of any of them.

Some great metrics that people tend to ignore:

1. The previously stated point about the greatest threat to the US coming from the populaces of our allies.

2. The fact that we have been deploying our military at an every growing rate to enforce our foreign policy among the same "allied" states that these populaces come from.

If we're going to use these as metrics, we need to quantify them, or at least to verify them. What indication do we have that we are being threatened by a populace... any populace?

Where have we been "deploying our military at an every growing rate to enforce our foreign policy" among allied states? I've seen us deploying our military to remove governments we disliked and to try to manage the power vacuums left by these removals... but where are we deploying forces at an increasing rate to enforce our policies among allies?