Mar 1, 2007 - Criminal Justice Review. 1. Volume 32 ... 70 Criminal Justice Rsvisu- .... faces. as the group sees it. a desperate threat to all they hold dear.
Criminal Justice Review 1
alans c!f Cllicapo.
IL
man 7i\,e~..ci~,, 111
Volume 32
Number 1 March 2007
v
70
ii
Criminal Justice Rsvisu-
I
Iiavarro. J. (2005). Hunting Terrol-ists:A Look at tlze Ps?chopat/tolog? of Terror. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas. DOI: 10.1li71073101680629;198
\
Joe Iia\:arro retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigations after 25 years of service, includins counterterrorism experience that began in 1981 against the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nactional in Puerto R ~ c o His . previous book was titled Advanced hztemie~.irtg Teclzniqzles: Prol.el1 Strategies for Lnlt. Enforcentent, Militaq, and Securih Pel~onllel (2004. iirith John R. Schafer). The premise of Hltrlting Terrorists is that techniques useful against street criminals are not adequate in dealing with terrorists. Street criminals are selfinterested and often impulsi\,e: terrorists are loyal to cause and comrades, and they often invest in long-tenn planning. The terrorist is a different h n d of criminal and Navarro offers here an unabridged version of the lectures he has been giving for years to introduce terrorism and terrorists to security and law enforcement personnel. It is one of the strengths of the book that the personality of the author rises from every page. This is no dry academic tone but the passionate voice of a patriot ivorried about the continuing threat of terrorism against the United States. The voice is energetic. definite. informal? and persuasive. It is easy to understand how Navarro has held the attention of action-oriented audiences loohng for ways to identify terrorists and penetrate terrorist groups. Particularly persuasiire is his call to get beyond surveillance to actually tallung with terrorists. not only to understand them but also to recruit them. Navarro defines terrorism as "\>iolenceor threat of violence to exact compliance from a population" (p. 10). More zenerally, he cites Carl von Clausewitz in seeing terrorism, similar to war. as "politics by other means." This definition immediately leads to the recosnition that states as \+,ell as nonstate groups are perpetrators of terrorism. In Death b? Go~,ertlmelzt,Rudolf Rummel has estimated that more than 100 million civilians -.ere lulled by state power in the 20th century, whereas terrorism, guerrilla war? and insurzency lulled only half a million. Unfortunately, the book continually mixes instances of state terror (Spanish and English settlers in the Americas terrorizing indigenous populations, Saddarn Hussein gassing Kurds in Iraq) with instances of nonstate terror (Puerto Rican separatists, Abu Nidal. al-Qaeda). This conflation obscures an important difference. State terrorism is unlike nonstate terrorism in the degree to which state killing depends on an industrial model of organization: specialization, routinization. and bureaucratic rewards and punishments. Navarro recognizes this difference implicitly by focusing his analysis on nonstate terrorists: he does not attempt to put the same analysis to work understanding state terrorism. The major part of the book is a description of the psychopathology of terror in tenns of six elements of the (nonstate) terrorist mind: uncompromising ideology, irreconcilable fear. passionate hatred, prescribed violence, functional isolation, and the pathological mind of the terrorist. These "co-morbid conditions" are said to be characteristic of terrorists. distinguishing them from normal individuals. The author sugzests that these elements can guide identification of terrorists and assist agents who must communicate Ivith and attempt to penetrate terrorist groups.
Fii becon \.idua elicit: of lo\ sai-e
1
1
nlal : faces A:
I
ener
~
ours1 and
I
D01: I I
I1 ate I role ii.111
years of s e n ice. -zas Armadas de -ed Itzten,ie~r,i~zg ~ i Perso~z~lel h :chniques useful iminals are self. and the! often d Navarro offers ntroduce terrori s e s from every orried about the :rgetic. definite. the attention of netrate terrorist illy talhng ivith npliance from a terrorism. simto the recogniI. In Dearh I?\. civilians were and insurgency ish and English 1 gassing Kurds idal. al-Qaeda). nonstate terrorlanization: speUTO recognizes oes not attempt rror in terms of concilable fear. ogical mind of >rrorist,. distin~ e n t scan guide and attempt to
Fi1.e of these elements are indeed useful descriptions of the Ivays in lshich indi\-iduals become capable of political lulling. Ideology identifies a group and a cause in \vhich in& viduals can find meaning for life and continuity after death. Perceived threat to this group elicits a fear stronger than fear of death. Hatred for the threatening enemy is the reflection of 1oi.e of the in-group. Violence against the enemy is not only permitted but prescribed to save loved ones from destruction. Functional isolation separates terrorists from other group,-family. friends. coworkers-who might pull against terrorist ideology. threat perception. hatred. and violence. The sixth element-the pathological mind of the terrorist-is less helpful. References to pathologies such as "splitting" and "narcissism" are out of date. This was the predominant theoretical framing for terrorism in the 1980s: but today the psychiatric emphasis on pathology and personality disorder has given way to recognition that the great majority of terrorists are ps~chologicallynormal. The evidence is in terrorist behavior. The hallmark of pathology is incompetence. but many terrorists. including al-Qaeda leaders. are well-educated. socially shlled. and planful. The "true believers" that Navarro describes are not defective personalities; the?- are normal and even idealistic individuals hardened in the crucible of a hish-cohesion group that faces. as the group sees it. a desperate threat to all they hold dear. As normal psychology. the five elements of the terrorist mind haire their parallels in mobilizing states for war. These elements can be seen in the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. 2001: idealization of American values. fear of further attacks. hatred for the enemy behind the attacks. and justification of violent retaliation. As Kavarro recognizes. e v e q army uses functional isolation to build cohesion in combat training (p. 79). Thus. Navarro's vivid descriptions of the terrorist mind ring tme. but interpreting these descriptions as aspects of psychopathology ~villnot help us. The ugly fact is that cause and comrades joined in high-cohesion groups can bring normal people to lulling without mercy. To profit fully from the insight that terrorism is politics. we need to see terrorists similar to oursel\-es at least in this: Terrorist violence and state violence often form spirals of action and reaction powered by the same true-believing psychology that Ka\.arro describes. Clark R. 3IcCauley
Bt?rz ibfa\t.~Colleg~~. Pc~i~rzs~~li~cir~ici
Ljnch. D. R. (2001). Iizsrde rlle CI-inzitznlCozil-ts. Durham. NC: Carolina Academic Press DO1 1011~i/0734016806297488
hzside tlre Crinzi~znlCozirts is not a compilation of "\var stories" but a chapter-by-chapter deconstiuction of the extended courtroom u-ork groups, systems. and processes that operate our criminal courts. Lynch uses fictional and nonfictional storytelling to describe these roles and functions. Students will be captivated by the stories and. before they know it. they n,ill learn about legal history, court structure. and the empirical studies that examine our system of justice.
