Terrorists not crazy, says psychiatrist

[Khephra]

LONDON (Reuters) - Terrorists are not crazy, but can be driven to kill by witnessing violence first hand or on television, a leading researcher says.

"The widespread view that terrorists are isolated, vulnerable young men with paranoid or borderline personality disorders is false," Dr Andrew Silke told a conference of the Royal College of Psychiatrists on Friday.

He quoted another researcher, Dr Wilfred Rusch, who interviewed members of Germany's Baader Meinhof underground leftwing group in the 1970s as concluding: "None of these people is crazy -- there is no psychiatric explanation as to why they are involved in terrorism."

Silke, a forensic psychologist at the University of Leicester, said recruits often join violent organisations after witnessing acts of violence in their own communities, which can give rise to an urge to exact revenge.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=544574§ion=news

[Concordance]

1. recruits often join violent organisations.....

"recruits often join violent organisations after witnessing acts of violence in their own communities, which can give rise to an urge to exact revenge."

Witnessing Apache helicopters strafe your neighborhood mowing down everyone and everything. Heavily armed men breaking down the door of your house in middle of night, who then proceed to beat you up, and then take your father away, never to be seen again. Yup! That'll do it!

[mbperrin]

7. Yes it will do it! It's actually completely sane to want others

NOT to to kill your family and friends and blow up the neighborhood.

It'd be sorta crazy to cheer them on.

Perhaps folks should re-rent "Red Dawn", that old chestnut against foreign invaders and see if they think the Wolverines are crazy or if they're the good guys!

[eridani]

2. Are sociopaths crazy?

Or do they just not give a flying fuck?

[eridani]

3. Are sociopaths crazy?

Or do they just not give a flying fuck?

[LeighAnn]

4. If a psychiatrist said it, it must be true. EOM

[Concordance]

5. Who else?

Who else would you rely on for such matters and research? A hot dog vendor perhaps? BTW, you don't need a psychiatrist to reach such a conclusion... common sense will do. Also, he is not the first to reach this conclusion. Intellectuals from every nation, race, profession have been repeating this since before 9/11 even.

[acmavm]

6. Apparently we're supposed to take the word of the bush* administration

that these people are not hitting on all cylinders. I mean, why would seeing you family, or you friends, or your fellow countrymen being blown to bits be a valid motive for joining the insurgency?

[emad]

8. A 2nd opinion from The Spoof.com:

TheSpoof snip:


Ex-Enron supremo Lay charged with 9/11 Freud

(Washington, Rioters) - Former Enron Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Lay was today indicted for a total of 9 out of 11 counts of conspiracy to commit Freud, false and misleading statements, fraudulent transactional analyses, fleecing vulnerable clients and hiring the Taliban to terrorise US patience, according to a federal grand jury indictment.

Psychiatrists acting for Lay defended their client: "Ken simply made a mistake in assuming that Freud could be committed to a Texan mental asylum by bribing the world's politicians some $100 billion from Enron's coffers.

"As for the Taliban, they are a lovable ethnic minority who scrape a living from growing decorative floral specimens used in the preparation of alternative medicines, so essential to modern psychiatry today. Perhaps their only fault is a hopeless sense of direction and an occasional tendency to crash aircraft into public landmark buildings in Lower Manhattan.

"It is highly delusional for anyone to allege that Ken Lay actually hired this lovable Afghani tribe to carry out a spate of contract mass murders and acts of global terror in the name of religion, politics or the US energy industry.

More:
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i5566