Shek

Here's another report just released by the CTC.

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"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

S-2

"· The Sinjar Records provide evidence that suggests al-Qa’ida’s Iraq affiliates rely on criminal smugglers as part of their logistics train in Syria.

· Many fighters to Iraq sign up for or travel to Iraq in small groups, rather than alone. 46% of fighters in the Sinjar Records that listed their date of arrival in Iraq arrived on the same day as another individual from their hometown."

These two points caught my attention. I'd think that the "buddy-plan" is a necessary moral/ethical reinforcement to scared young men heading to their death. It can't be easy as they move closer to Iraq on their journey. Having a "home-boy" would help. A cue, I'd imagine, for border agents/customs/police along Iraq's Syrian border these days.

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"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski

Swift Sword

Expanding upon this line, FWIW, it is a fairly common pattern in radical indoctrination in general to actively "deindividuate", (if you will allow the colloquialism...if I am even using colloquial in the proper context ) targets by surrounding them with other people, assigning other people as handlers, etc., etc.

Call it keeping them isolated by not letting them be alone.

However, there may lie herein a lever to work against the other guy's message.

Since the other guy is actively working to "deindividuate" it stands to reason our counter propaganda ought to stress "reindividuation".

If and when we decide to consider a solid counter propaganda effort, perhaps a counter collective effort might involve sowing doubt by playing the Greater Jihad as the cure for the Lesser Jihad...hit with the old "whom do ye serve" bit after a fashion.

There is enough speculation within Islamic thought itself about the nature and manner of Jihad that it might be a fertile area to induce cognitive dissonence in the targets as part of a package of offsets.

Food for thought, at any rate.

Regards,

William

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Pharoh was pimp but now he is dead. What are you going to do today?

ofogs

It seems the buddy team technique makes sense for AQI for the same reason armies have soldiers operate in buddy teams- it greatly increases the likelihood of the individuals going through with their attack. Grossman's On Killing discusses how few individuals actually fired their weapons during WWII, but crewed weapons had a much higher rate of actually being employed. Mutual moral support and so forth, plus, even if both individuals have their doubts, neither will want to lose face to their friend.

S-2

"There is enough speculation within Islamic thought itself about the nature and manner of Jihad that it might be a fertile area to induce cognitive dissonence in the targets as part of a package of offsets."

Yup. A few at CTC seem to be interested here already. Lia's al-Suri article and the "Harmony/Disharmony" studies aren't academic exercises. Somebody somewhere is taking a look at practical exploitation of these fissures on many different levels.

It's a VERRRRY interesting collection of folks quietly engaged in some amazingly serious work up there on that campus.

Ray

I found the articles in the CTC very interesting.

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"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Mobbme

Sir, I also found this quite interesting:

Interview with a former Training Emir Of Al Qaeda
LiveLeak.com - MEMRI: Interview with former Training Emir of Al Qaeda
(with english subtitles)

Ray

Shek is doing great service in updating all of us.

An asset to the WAB.

Thank you, Shek.

GVChamp

Alright, I'm going to give my uneducated impressions on the matter.

The first thing that stuck out to me was the ages, and the especially high incidence of people born in 1984, IE, 23 year olds, as well as the number of students involved. If college in the Middle East is a 4 year affair like it is in the states, I think there is possibly a very clear explanation of radicalization: unemployment. Radicalization aside, a poor job market for college kids is the spark in the ignition system.

I also wonder if these documents are biased somewhat towards more educated people (literacy rates)

I also wonder why so many people are coming out of a town in Libya that Qaddafi apparently hates. It does not seem like the kind of place that would be producing high numbers of college students, leading me to wonder exactly who is coming from that country.

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"The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

ofogs

I think your comment about the ages is interesting, but may also offer another explanation for the radicalization: the college education itself. As I recall, many of the 9/11 hijackers were highly educated, as well. Also, college may, indeed, indicate a college in religious teachings, which could easily lead people to follow a radical strand of Islam.