Robert A. Pape talks about Terrorism

I attended the discussion with Robert A. Pape today called “Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It.” Pape is a professor at the University of Chicago (of course) and is supported by the Niagara Foundation (who I sadly haven’t had time to look into to) that is “promoting global fellowship” (or at least that’s what the banner hanging beside the podium said). Pape founded the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism. This was his first time speaking at the U and gave a lecture along side a Powerpoint presentation about, what else, terrorism.

But not just any kind of terrorism. No, Pape especially studies suicide attacks, which he calls, “the lung cancer of terrorism.” He state that these sort of attacks are kill 12 times as many people. than “regular” terrorism. According to him, we can study this as we can study lung cancer – who gets it and who doesn’t get it. He collected the first database of suicide attacks around the world and was later called by the Department of Defense to talk about his research. His newest book (that has the same title as the lecture) was unveiled at Capitol Hill, where prominent speakers such as the head of the 9/11 Commission and Admiral Roughead of the Navy spoke (which he was very, very proud of). According to him, this was the first time the University of Chicago had a conference on Capitol Hill (and fun side note, he had to find a way to give books away for free because you cannot sell a book on Capitol Hill).

Pape gave a long discourse about the legitimacy of his sources and how this is the “largest wealth of suicide terrorism” information there is. I noted that martyr videos were bought off the black market as part of this study. There is a minimum of two collaborative sources on each noted terrorist attack. He voiced the fear of “garbage data” and “anonymous chat room data” and showed us how to search his database, noting that many of us may be “skeptical at first” of his sources, but he assured us that there were 10,000 verified documents online. But if we felt that something was off, there is the ability to challenge data (though so far, says Pape, “no one has been able to credibly challenge”). Here’s the link if you want to take a look: http://cpost.uchicago.edu/.

He continued on to tell us that “simply the facts” showed that most terrorists were not Islamic Radicals and that there was a strong link between foreign occupation and suicide terrorism. There were a lot of details that he went over but, for the sake of brevity (if that even exists in my repertoire) I’ll skip some of it. 343 attacks occurred before 2003; however, after 2003 through the present (though my roommate found that his website only goes up to 2008, so that’s debatable) the amount of attacks went up to 1,800. Pape said something like he didn’t believe that they could have missed more than five attacks in their research. “We would know if we missed hundreds. The admiral would know and Congress would know,” he said (the admiral referring to Admiral Roughead). Pape believes there is actually a stronger correlation between suicide terrorism and foreign occupation than there is between smoking and lung cancer (he really liked using this metaphor). He had a statistic, something like 90% of suicide attacks happen for this reason (but I’m not sure how he got this number).

He also mentioned some micro-connections that might lead to more attacks, such as revenge (such as family members and friends being killed), social prestige (he argued that martyr videos were create not as a warning for the US but as a means making themselves look like heroes), and hopelessness (especially during great power imbalances and this may lead people to become religious – his reasoning, might I clarify).

On a graph he had of Iraq, suicide attacks peak around 2007 and comes down in what he called a “distinct two-step pattern.” He stated that all suicide missions came from the Sunni population in Iraq (which I thought was curious but don’t know enough about the divisions like this to agree/argue with this point). According to Pape, Saddam Hussein was a Sunni, thus by throwing him out of power, the Sunnis were thrown out of power and most put out by US occupation. But why the decrease? Pape said it wasn’t because of the Surge necessarily but because the military was paying Sunnis not to “kill us.” They were given a paycheck each month and, as long as they didn’t kill the troops in Iraq, they would be continued to be paid. Though there was fears that they would buy guns and kill Americans, this apparently worked. The Sunnis did buy guns but for protection (of themselves and their way of life) and this turned them into “actual partners,” not just employees. I feel like it’s too much like bribery (but that’s just my opinion). Pape also said that the withdrawal accords decreased attacks by 85 percent and that we’re “putting terrorists out of business.”

Afghanistan, however, is a different story. Like Iraq, Pape said there was one specific group doing all the attacks – the Pashtuns (again, I know nothing about this so can’t agree/disagree). US occupation of the rest of Afghanistan caused attacks to increase and attacks haven’t decreased significantly. Issues with Pakistan have not helped (they also have a high population of Pashtuns, and they also have a rough situation with India).

Pape wrapped up by showing a video of Adam Gadahn, the “poster child” to recruit terrorists. He’s an American, the son of a Jewish family that converted to Christianity and then Gadahn himself converted to Islam. Pape showed this video to show that it contained “hardly any discussions of Islam” and that “this is what we’re up against and why our information war is going nowhere.” He emphasized how much of a “politician” Gadahn was, by spinning the facts and exaggerating things while still sticking to real stories and events.

On what to do about these attacks, Pape was wonderfully vague. He said it would be wrong to cut and run and become isolationists, because in some situations we have moral obligations. But neither should we stay and die, as countries are “producing more terrorists than killing.” His solution was offshore balancing – using the navy and air force to station in nearby countries to quickly deploy if situations arise, in order to “stop terrorists before they begin.”

So that’s the summary. As far as my reactions go, I had really mixed feelings about Pape. He wasn’t quite what I was expected (Mitch Rapp incarnate, actually). He was nice and a pretty good speaker but I just feel like he skirted around so many issues. My roommate Sarah, who’s in a class about terrorism this semester and went to the lecture with me, felt like he cut out the role of religion way too much. She tried to get him to answer a question about Occidentalism (quick and dirty definition – the ideological war against the West; comfort = alienation in this idea, “a search for the whole,” Sarah says) and what the connection would between religion and culture and terrorism. Pape completely avoided the Occidentalism idea and went back to religion not being the trigger for attacking, that it was more about occupation and protecting their way of life (which is funny, since one might include religion under way of life). He did mention that it was about local ideas, “insulated from foreign imperialist ideas” and I thought it was helpful that he did actually voice the word “imperialist.” However, his way of phrasing was a bit… iffy. “It’s only natural to focus on local thoughts to insulate themselves from foreign imperialism,” he said. But I couldn’t tell if he thought foreign imperialism was a good thing or not.

And, in the vein of Loewen, he actually brought up some not so great things the US has done involving the Middle East during the question section. His idea for offshore balancing does not allow the US to handpick a leader, which is something the Republicans have apparently criticized Obama for about Libya. Pape stated, however, that this “wasn’t a Republican issues” and that we “want to have an employee in that country.” However, he doesn’t support picking a leader and believes that we should “created the conditions to do so themselves [meaning the people of a certain country] and take time.” He also mentioned that situations with Afghanistan and CIA operations in the Middle East have not been beneficial, but he didn’t elaborate much.

I asked a question later about 9/11 because I still didn’t understand how it was connected. Pape suggested that attacks came because of foreign occupation, but if that was the case, why did we get attacked in 2001? Were we occupying Afghanistan? Pape said that we began occupying the Arabian peninsula in 1991 and, after I asked why the attack occurred in the US and not to the troops in the Middle East, he stated that the troops had been attacked in 1995 but “you just don’t hear about it.” Apparently the attacks weren’t large enough and Osama Bin Ladin wanted something more noticeable since small attacks just “look like a bad day on the nightly news.” And thus 9/11. However, I feel like this is downplaying a lot of factors – timing, location, target, etc. Why did they choose 2001 if they’d been attacking troops since 1995?

And my biggest underlying issue, that I wasn’t really able to vocalize until I was talking with Sarah afterwards was the idea of the people in the Middle East. Pape’s Schmittian logic of terrorists being enemies and those who cooperate with us being friends was overwhelmingly clear. But he never exactly voiced whether he thought their way of life was a problem. I’m not saying he does. It’s just the way he spoke about Imperialism and downplayed religion bothered me. Obviously, not every terrorists is a fundamentalist or even religious – that much is clear. But there is a connection between religion and culture. And there’s a connection between oppressing culture and terrorism (foreign occupation, as Pape called it). But Pape was never clear if they were not wrong for not being Western – if defending their own culture was a bad thing or not. This was the root of my question and Sarah’s, something I wished I’d gotten the chance to ask him about. But then again, I don’t know how I would have asked it without sounding anti-American. And that’s a path I really didn’t want to end up on.

Overall, it was a really interesting lecture and I could say a lot more about it. But that’ll do for now.