To the Editor:
Re “Which Attackers Are ‘Terrorists’?’’ (front page, July 18):
It is unfortunate that this otherwise thoughtful analysis repeats (several times) the new favored explanation by Western terrorism analysts that those who self-radicalize and commit acts of violence on behalf of the global jihad are mostly just “unstable people who are at the end of their rope,” or “social misfits” on the “fringes of society,” all simply looking to die “for a cause.”
In fact, for every attacker who was a “social misfit,” there’s a popular college student like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers. And for every one who came from the “fringes of society,” there are successful professionals like Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army doctor who assaulted Fort Hood, or members of a privileged elite, like the young Bangladeshis who committed a massacre at a cafe in Dhaka this month.
And far from being “deranged,” in most cases (including the ones just mentioned), the attackers clearly, and cogently, explain the geopolitical rationale for their actions.
I recognize that it may be frightening for Westerners to believe that “normal” people may be inspired and radicalized by ISIS and other jihadi groups. But that is actually the very definition of terrorism: calculated violence carried out in the name of a political movement.
STUART GOTTLIEB
New York
The writer teaches American foreign policy and counterterrorism at Columbia.
