It’s a 90-page-long PDF file. Here’s part of the introduction:
While the threat from overseas remains, many of the terrorist attacks or thwarted plots against cities in Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States have been conceptualized and planned by local residents/citizens who sought to attack their country of residence. The majority of these individuals began as “unremarkable” - they had “unremarkable” jobs, had lived “unremarkable” lives and had little, if any criminal history. The recently thwarted plot by homegrown jihadists, in May 2007, against Fort Dix in New Jersey, only underscores the seriousness of this emerging threat. Understanding this trend and the radicalization process in the West that drives “unremarkable” people to become terrorists is vital for developing effective counterstrategies.
This realization has special importance for the NYPD and the City of New York. As one of the country’s iconic symbols and the target of numerous terrorist plots since the 1990’s, New York City continues to be the one of the top targets of terrorists worldwide. Consequently, the NYPD places a priority on understanding what drives and defines the radicalization process.
The aim of this report is to assist policymakers and law enforcement officials, both in Washington and throughout the country, by providing a thorough understanding of the kind of threat we face domestically. It also seeks to contribute to the debate among intelligence and law enforcement agencies on how best to counter this emerging threat by better understanding what constitutes the radicalization process.
I haven’t read any of it yet. I’ll be interested to see how specific the NYPD is about Saudi influence within US mosques and Muslim organizations.
Hat tip: Peggy Noonan
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
Because America is governed by politicians who respond to religion-based phobias about individual pleasures.
Which is why I have advocated the complete abolition of drug laws, and an end to the useless, counter-productive, and un-constitutional war on some drugs for decades.
Why? First and most important, drug laws violate the principle that man ought to be free to do as he chooses (including being irrational) as long as he respects the property rights of others. Second, and this what is so staggeringly easy to see, is that such laws don’t work!
After the Virginia Tech massacre, there was the usual chorus of calls for stricter gun controls. What planet are these people from? With the example of drug control laws creating lucrative opportunities for third world thugs, increasing criminal behaviour, and consuming the resources we could be using to fight real threats, how could any reasonably informed, rational person suggest gun control laws? Oh… never mind, I just answered my question.
Well, I agree with all of that, of course, Alfred, but I was answering the specific question “Why does America pursue…”
Another possible influence is bribery on a massive scale from the drug cartels. I know if I were a drug lord, I’d certainly not quail at forking over 5-10% of my gross to make damned sure that the price supports of state-mandated illegality remained in place.
But I suspect they don’t need that. Their bribery budget probably goes to keeping the import and distribution lines wide open.
We know prohibition doesn’t work, and, in fact, is invariably counter-productive. Some of us know that it is immoral, as well. But it plays well in the boob-docks, where preachers and various other moralizers find it useful to whale on the sinful for publicity and profit.
And wherever the moralizer treads, the politician is sure to follow - with his hand out.
In other words they are losers, trying for their 15 minutes, their Columbine.
I’m not sure whether or not this report is worth whatever it cost the tax payer. Some per review would be nice.
Maybe the strategy in Dean Ing’s book “Soft targets” would work with these creatures. That is make light of their efforts and portray them as bumbling idiots.(RINOs?)
During a visit this summer, a brother-in-law from London asked me rhetorically why I thought there were so few successful terrorist attempts in the US in the last 5 years. Hemmed and hawed about improved anti-terrorism policing and somewhat improved border security post-911, and he told me flat out that it was because the Islamic part of the American population wasn’t radicalized - they’d come here to pursue better economic opportunities, and/or to escape nasty regimes. That they tended to be more likely to inform on radicals than in the UK. That whatever the US does about terrorism, we should not jeopardize (or allow to be jeopardized) this low level of radicalization and higher level of assimilation and of cooperation with the authorities.
I haven’t read this study either, but am very happy to hear that it was done.
And I am in full agreement with this. We are not - and I hope we never do get there - at the point where wholesale measures are necessary or desirable.
Especially if the Islamic community here in the US can swallow a bit of pride and understand that we are at war with Islamists, and until we win that war, as good citizens and residents they may have to shoulder a bit more than their share of ordinary discomfort.
Such as understanding that, for starters, males of a certain age and ethnic or religious appearance may receive greater scrutiny as a matter of course. Just as even Jesse Jackson is “relieved” when he discovers that the group of jabbering boys following him on the street after dark is white, not black.