Someone commits suicide while taking 43 people with him in a Middle Eastern market. Another bomber takes the same number of people with him in a group of applicants for the police force. The media ascribes to both the term terrorist. Wrong.

Someone asks why do terrorists attack innocent civilians. The definition of terrorism will explain why.

Just what is the definition of terrorism? Is it like the Supreme Court justice who couldn’t define pornography but recognized it when he saw it? No. There really is a definition of terrorism. To wit: The calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.

It is called terrorism because the goal is to terrorize. It isn’t important, as far as the definition is concerned, whether the violence is actual or merely threatened. The important part is that it is directed against the civilian population, not against the government. Why is it important that the target be the civilian population? In a word: weakness. They are too weak to face the military, except as in the relatively rare case of a target of opportunity.

The goal is not to weaken the government, at least not directly. The goal is to destabilize the society. This may be attempted as a way for a weak force to find or create a crack in the structure of the government that can be exploited. More commonly, they expect the population to create sufficient turmoil as to destabilize the society and thereby put the rulers in jeopardy. Then, they intend to walk in as the solution. So go their dreams.

Terrorists are confused with guerrillas. Guerrillas are irregular military forces. They are defined by their tactics. They are also weak but use tactics that are designed to reduce or obviate the advantages of a formal military force. They usually attack military forces but sometimes they target other governmental entities. Groups selecting the route of guerrilla warfare, while weak, have more resources and capabilities than those choosing to become terrorists.

So, why should we care about getting the definitions correct? Because your prospects may depend on knowing who your enemy is, what he is capable of, what he is likely to do or what his weaknesses are. Remember? Know thy enemy.

Let’s just take a little peek at terrorism. We know they are weak, else they would have chosen other methods. We know they have a stupid spot in their brain. What? Yes. While History provides us examples of guerrillas that have been successful, there has never been a terrorist organization that has overthrown a government. Personally, I don’t consider it as evidence of intelligence to select a methodology that has never worked.

The parties that start a terrorist movement may be so weak that they see it as their only option. Okay, but that doesn’t require them to pursue an absolutely worthless approach. Whatever their grievance, they and everyone else would be far better off if they elected to just sit in a corner and pout. Their odds of success would not be any less.

What does their weakness tell us? To what conclusions does it lead?

Weak men doubt themselves. They tend to cover this doubt with rabid attachment to something they see as larger than themselves. The doubt is just covered, not gone. We need to use methods for exacerbating that doubt. There should be an elaborate and sophisticated psychological warfare operation going on. There seems very little evidence that one is in place and even less evidence of there being an effective one being pursued.

A very obvious point of attack is their manhood. Exposing a man’s weakness can easily be construed as a weakness in his manhood. Middle Eastern societies exhibit a great deal of questioning of their manhood. You don’t keep women as segregated, confined and downtrodden as they do unless you see yourself as incapable of measuring up to other men in the eyes of the women. You eliminate any comparison by eliminating any opportunity for comparison.

This also explains the belief that a martyr will have 72 virgins at his beck and call in Paradise. Why virgins? They won’t laugh at his romantic efforts because they have nothing to use for comparison. I wonder if they will only screw them when they are virgins? For all of eternity in Paradise, will they only have sex 72 times? Does that sound like Paradise to you?

Since they are already well along in questioning their manhood, one possible exploitation would be to bring their private questioning of themselves into the public arena. Start rumors. Get friendly clerics to preach against the obvious pitfalls for men who question their manhood and are afraid of women. There are plenty of avenues for insinuation. Many will be more concerned about giving the public a perception of their sexuality being in question  than in earning the virgins that cause the question to be brought up.

Are there other ways of waging psychological warfare beyond portraying weak men as homosexual? Of course. The problem is that we are trying to wage as traditional a type of warfare as we can and missing every opportunity for success.

These people don’t see suicide as undesirable. Quite the opposite. They see the prospect as very desirable. We need to change that. We need to make them see it as undesirable, or at least as being somewhat questionable. Just the presence of a question makes the decision to forfeit their lives much more difficult. Just a little doubt can be leveraged into a major decrease in the availability of recruits.

We are dealing with people with emotional, psychological and social defects. These need to be exploited. Reducing the recruiting pool is easier than accepting all of those funerals as inevitable. To this point, our anti-terrorist efforts have been far less than successful. We need to help these innocent civilians. They deserve it.