February 3, 2006

The Role of Social Context in Terrorist Attacks

By NICHOLE ARGO

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's question two years ago seemed reasonable enough: "Are we capturing, killing, or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us?"

It's a popular notion: Charismatic religious leaders and their ideologies inculcate violent convictions among their constituents, and desperate or zealous individuals act on those convictions. By this logic, terror is bound

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