Via Press release (Eurekalert)
Report from START: Discovery Networks Hostage-Taking a Rare Terror Event
U.S. Violent Terror Rarely Against Media, Capital; Rare for Environmentalists
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – A new report by terrorism researchers at the University of Maryland concludes that the deadly hostage-taking incident at the Discovery Communications headquarters in suburban Washington, D.C. meets the criteria of a terrorist act – a rare one for media organizations and the nation’s capital region. Hostage-taking, though, is a familiar pattern in capital-region terror, the researchers add.
The report from the University of Maryland’s START Center – the federally funded National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism – also finds that there has never been any environmentally inspired suicide eco-terrorism in the United States, and probably the world, but draws no conclusions about whether that’s what occurred in this case.
START maintains the world’s most comprehensive unclassified database of terrorism incidents, and is designed to make it useful to scientists and policy-makers seeking to understand the behavior of terrorists and terror organizations. The report is based on an analysis of this data.
“The use of violence by radical environmentalists is extremely rare, and usually the target is property not people,” says Gary LaFree, who directs the University of Maryland START Consortium and its Global Terrorism Database. “We’ll count this incident as terrorism – the perpetrator has a history of politically inspired activism and his tactics were violent.”
START researchers analyzed the following information in the Global Terrorism Database, which includes more than 85,000 incidents worldwide since 1970:
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TOP FINDINGS GLOBAL TERRORISM DATABASE The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world from 1970 through 2008 (with annual updates planned for the future). Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as international terrorist attacks and now includes more than 87,000 cases. For each GTD incident, information is available on the date and location of the incident, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and – when identifiable – the group or individual responsible. The full dataset can be downloaded through the “Contact” section of the website at http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/. START CONSORTIUM The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) is a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence based at the University of Maryland. START uses state-of-the-art theories, methods, and data from the social and behavioral sciences to improve understanding of the origins, dynamics, and social and psychological impacts of terrorism. Additional information on START is available at: http://www.start.umd.edu. |
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I wonder how Think Progress is going to spin this one?
I don’t think Mr Lee needed a cause per se, but finding the 24/7 media hype of a doomed planet theory got him over the edge. In his case, AGW was his accident looking for a place to happen.
He certainly made his mark, being the very 1st Global Warming terrorist.
So “Save money, live better.” had nothing to do with it?
Fewer jobs and less, if any, benefits?
Does sabotage or booby traps intended to cause injury or death (such as tree spiking) count?
Lee rants against humans having babies, and attacks the Discovery Communications building where there was a large day-care facility. Fortunately no children were hurt!
I can’t help noticing an eerie parallel with a number of fatal attacks on schools and kindergartens in mainland China recently carried out by angry, disgruntled, single Chinese men. There, a lot of children have died. Motive is usually unclear, but maybe a hatred for human kind and reproduction could be a factor?
evanmjones says:
September 2, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Does sabotage or booby traps intended to cause injury or death (such as tree spiking) count?
========================================================
Apparently not. Those were obviously not eco-terrorists, but rather misunderstood people that wanted to torture trees with nails and spikes.
A sadly deranged individual committed a heinous act for reasons we will never understand. (Mostly because we’re not bonkers, like poor Mr. Lee). This is not about the climate. I say close the string. We have more important things to think about.
– dT
Can you have terrorism without a terrorist organization? Does one person qualify as a terrorist organization?
James Sexton says:
September 2, 2010 at 10:20 pm
evanmjones says:
September 2, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Does sabotage or booby traps intended to cause injury or death (such as tree spiking) count?
========================================================
Apparently not. Those were obviously not eco-terrorists, but rather misunderstood people that wanted to torture trees with nails and spikes.
========================================================
It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway, either way you look at it, if trees are people too, and if people are people too, then the tree spikers are some sadistic SOBs. Yes. they tried to kill people. But they tortured trees too!!!!
“START uses state-of-the-art theories, methods, and data from the social and behavioral sciences to improve understanding of the origins, dynamics, and social and psychological impacts of terrorism.”
Well, as long as they don’t use models….ok then.
James Sexton says:
September 2, 2010 at 10:43 pm
“It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway, either way you look at it, if trees are people too, and if people are people too, then the tree spikers are some sadistic SOBs. Yes. they tried to kill people. But they tortured trees too!!!!”
And also left them to suffer the rest of their (long) lives in agony! At least when you cut a tree down it dies and its worries are over.
Wow. That took a lot of guts. Wonder how Bush arranged it?
@ur momisugly Andrew W:
ter·ror·ism
/ˈtɛrəˌrɪzəm/ Show Spelled[ter-uh-riz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun
1.
the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
I know, I know, cherry-picking going to the dictionary for a definition, but I can’t help myself. I am like cherry-Midas. Everything I touch…
I’m appalled that you are continuing to use the sad life and untimely death of a horribly ill person in this nasty way. Shame on you.
Thanks Dave, it does seem though that the currently popular definition of terrorism would include violent acts or threats of violence by any individual with a political ax to grind. Not happy with paying so much tax to support excess government? Go into IRS, punch someone on the nose, and you’re a terrorist. Deface a politicians billboard, or punch a politician on the nose, you’re a terrorist.
Andrew W says:
“Can you have terrorism without a terrorist organization? Does one person qualify as a terrorist organization?”
Ever since the end of the Cold War, there have been a a lot of workers in the military and intelligence sectors with no obvious reason for their jobs, who have been frantically looking for a justification for their continued existence.
So, yes, one man can be a ‘terrorist’, so long as that requires 20 people sitting in Washington and London putting him on a database and analyzing his motives….
“START uses state-of-the-art theories, methods, and data from the social and behavioral sciences to improve understanding of the origins, dynamics, and social and psychological impacts of terrorism.”
Like climatology, most of the theories behind human behaviour are not falsifiable. Like climatology, they substitute correlation and belief for the scientific method – they are ‘cargo cult sciences’.
Just by giving something a label doesn’t mean we understand it!
The ABC News “Virtual View” CGI model showed a white dark-haired terrorist.
If they just keep showing the model and don’t show or talk about the reality… (Does this sound familiar?)
BTW, nice graphics. Do they make their “Virtual View” in Second Life?
Andrew W says:
September 2, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Can you have terrorism without a terrorist organization? Does one person qualify as a terrorist organization?”
At least the organization chart is easy to follow, unlike the typical multinational, multi-divisional organizations. Very short chain of command, eh?
‘The use of violence by radical environmentalists is extremely rare’
ARE.
THEY.
STUPID!?!
Or just lying through their teeth.
What about the 2002 Dutch assassination of Pim Fortuyn (who looked en route to be prime minister) by an “animal rights” activist?
I can appreciate that environmentalists will feel that this tragic individual has nothing to do with environmentalism, and that the right-wing will seize on it to paint enviros as nuts.
But surely the best way to handle that PR problem is to first, acknowledge that this individual committed a terrorist act in the name of environmentalism (just like acknowledging that some terrorists commit their acts in the name of Islam — I mean that’s just a fact — it is not inflammatory — that is simply what they themselves say and they say it on video, just like here the guy posted it all online for the world to see, to make clear what his conscious philosophy was).
Second, the environmentalists should be the first to make clear that they do not agree with nor condone his actions. Whether he was a nut or not doesn’t matter, his psychological profile doesn’t matter, what matters is making clear that taking hostages is NOT an acceptable means for the environmental movement.
The thing with Islam (if I may touch on this very very lightly) that can worry people, isn’t that a few nuts are insane enough to become terrorists, and do so in their own extreme view, in the name of Islam (and by the way I narrowly missed a terrorist bomb years ago so the subject has some meaning to me) — we all appreciate that actual bona fide terrorists are a very tiny minority globally — but what actually worries is the feeling that there hasn’t been enough public condemnation of those acts by supposed moderates. It is like people can’t divorce the philosophy from the morality, which is to say, can’t distinguish between what people say (environmentalism cares) and what they do (taking hostages is not ok, ever).
If environmentalists don’t vocally denounce his actions, up front, by saying, yes he claims he was acting in our name, but he is NOT one of us and we detest his methods and we denounce his violence and we will denounce anybody who acts this way, then that leaves everyone with a sense that, um, yeah, this guy was “crazy” in that sense of, “brave or stupid” enough to actually go take “direct action”.
The environmentalists didn’t hire this guy — we all know that — but if you print in the paper that you’re in favour of direct action, and some guy turns up on your doorstep “fully equipped”, then you have to deal with him. It is not your responsibility in the sense of you hired him, because you didn’t, but you are forced to respond in the sense that certain consequences have arrived and you have to now respond. (Response-ability, the ability to respond).
Not something nice or desirable for anybody, but how many more might come knocking? The terrible fear that such acts generate in the back of people’s minds is, how many more might there be? What might they do next? How far will they go? Nobody can know these answers, but the fear escalates.
A National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism figures it was terrorism. Big surprise there. Kind of like a surgeon diagnosing a patient as needing surgury, or a psychiatrist diagnosing a patient needing therapy. It is what they know and all they know. — John M Reynolds
Hmmmmm…but the attack at Ft. Hood, according to our ‘leadership’ was not.
Perhaps since this one was against a media organization there is a tad more sensitivity?
So far no mention of Uni-bomber, Ted Kaczynski.
A brief look inside his cabin, mention is made of a hooded sweat shirt!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKg3CN0dDnQ