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Eli Berman Quoted in The Guardian on al-Qaida

Are al-Qaida and the Taliban driven by the desire to help others?

05/03/2011
Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian

Osama bin Laden was the most famous terrorist in the world; he also served as the single biggest distraction from a serious analysis of the roots of terrorism. With his murderous version of Muslim piety and references to a 7th-century caliphate, the al-Qaida head helped define Islamist extremism as ideological, apocalyptic and imperialist. That story bore as much relation to the truth as a skinny man's reflection in a hall of mirrors – but it's the one that US and British politicians bought. Judging by yesterday's comments from US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and defence secretary Liam Fox, it's the version they still believe. Not only is that account wrong; some of the best academic research suggests that following it does little to tackle terrorism.

The conventional view of Islamist terrorism is the one set out by Clinton yesterday, of a "violent ideology that holds no value for human life": evil, inexplicable, and irreconcilable with any civilised values. Yet analysis from social scientists suggests the opposite.

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Eli Berman is an associate professor of economics at UC San Diego and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also currently Research Director for International Security Studies at the Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC).

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