Shane Marie Morrow Lecture
Metro Department of Psychology
October 10, 2007 Susan Heitler, Ph.D.
On 9/11 of 2001 Americans discovered terrorism. Reeling from the shocking news of planes flown into New York’s World Trade Center, Americans turned on their TV sets. To our horror, we watched Palestinians dancing in the streets in celebration of the many American deaths in the Twin Towers. We saw a video of Osama Bin Ladin and one of his associates, architects of the slaughter, laughing at the death counts with obvious glee. How could these people delight in having killed thousands of innocent men and women?
If America is to stop the spread of terrorism, we first must understand the nature of the phenomenon. Today’s terrorists are driven by religious ideology and political goals. I am proposing however that terrorism can also be regarded as a mental health disorder, as an epidemic of violent mentality. Looking through the lens of psychological
diagnosis, I see terrorism as battering behavior, that is, domestic abuse on a mega scale.
Three quick points of clarification. First, an abusive husband uses violence to control and dominate his wife. Women also can be abusive, and parents can abuse children and also elders. For purposes of this lecture however I will simplify the picture by referring to abusers as he and the victim as the wife.
Second clarification: do all terrorists have abusive personality disorders? No. The analogy between domestic batterers and terrorists applies mainly to terrorist leaders–Osama bin Laden of Al Quaeda for instance, or the former Yassar Arafat, father of Palestinian terrorism. What about their followers?
Interestingly, researchers who have interviewed Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails have found that most have quite normal personalities. In fact, they tend to be eager to please compliant young men and women who want to be successful in what their society has labeled success. The problem is that these otherwise emotionally normal young adults have adopted the ideology of the terror organizations that their society respects. Palestinian schools and TV teach children from kindergarten on that the way to be a hero is to kill themselves and their Israeli neighbors. Large posters of suicide bombers decorate the streets. Soccer fields and sports tournaments are named after young people who have given up their lives to kill innocent others. The result is that while Palestinian terrorists may be psychologically normal in other regards, they have been indoctrinated with a terrorist/batterer’s mentality. As Freud pointed out, groups take on the personality of the leader. Thus, when I talk about terrorists, I am referring to the mentality of terrorist leaders, and also to the ideology shared by members of terror organizations.
Third clarification: Do others besides batterers and terrorists show violent mentalities? For sure. Playground bullies taunt other children and beat them up. Gang leaders use brutality to establish their power. In the political realm, dictators, and especially brutal tyrants such as the former Saddam Hussein, show the same mentality.
What about police and military personnel? They also utilize force–but with a difference. Violence professionals are carefully trained to use minimum necessary force; their job which is to protect citizens from those who would harm them. Equating legitimate police and military action with terrorism would be like equating firefighters
with arsonists, or equating doctors with purveyors of street drugs.
What are then the symptoms of abusers, and what causes these traits? As I describe domestic abusers’ symptoms and speculate on their sources, I’ll illustrate similar
patterns in the speeches and actions of terrorists. Lastly, I will look at what research on treatment of domestic abusers suggests in the way of strategies for overcoming terrorists’ growing and global potential for harm. Here we go.
Physical Violence
The central distinguishing feature of abusers is willingness to harm others to get what they want. Let me give you an example of one domestic abuser–let’s call him John. John was angry at his son for not coming to dinner when he’d called. Rita, John’s wife heard John’s shouting, and stepped in to the room to calm his raging. John turned to Rita
and pushed her away. He slammed her against the wall shouting “Stop interfering!” and “Leave me alone you Whore.” He turned back then to his son, lifting his hand to slap the boy. When Rita stepped between them, trying to protect they boy, John attacked her in a fury, pummeling Rita’s face with his fists. He then left the room slamming the door.
In Western civilization domestic violence such as John’s is considered immoral and uncivilized. Laws against it also make violence in homes illegal1.
In most of the Arab Middle East, there are no laws against wife battering or child abuse. Beating women or children is legal, condoned and even recommended by many Islamic leaders and in Islamic texts. That is not to say that all men are violent toward family members. Many are kindly and respectful. But, as a Jordanian psychologist friend of mine explained to me, without laws there is no way to stop those who batter, so violence in homes is more frequent and more difficult to halt than in the West. Bin Laden echoes a cultural belief in the rightness of violence when he waves a copy of the Koran, inciting terrorists with his oft-repeated statement “You cannot defeat heretics withthis book alone; you have to show them the fist!” (Bodansky, 1999, p. 387).
How does battering begin?
Most battering begins with verbal abuse. Abusive spouses are quick to criticize and blame. They escalate to mean insults and name-calling. Often the criticisms are vastly exaggerated and the accusations are for trumped up or totally false charges. Note that an abuser is not interested in discussing the accuracy of his criticism. If his wife tries
to explain her concerns, to discuss the problem or to defend herself, a batterer is unlikely to listen. He is likely instead to get increasingly angry.
What is the purpose of these verbal attacks? An abuser’s criticisms build a case to justify his anger and his eventual violence. Verbal harangues also can distract his spouse from situations he does not want his wife to focus on. For instance, in my clinical practice I have had multiple batterers who used verbal violence to cover for an affair;
another who criticized his wife to block her from asking about his gambling, and another who increased his verbal attacks to hide his return to using drugs.
Berating a wife also bolsters a man’s power. Criticisms can make the wife feel bad about herself, weakening her with guilt and shame, and thereby rendering her less like to call any attention to the husband’s wrong-doings. A spouse who believes her husband’s rantings about how bad she is becomes at risk for depression which adds further feelings of powerlessness, a state psychologists call battered woman syndrome.
Terrorism similarly begins with verbal violence. Hate rhetoric, whether it’s anti-Semitic, anti Christian anti American, or anti any group is the large scale equivalent of a domestic abuser’s verbal abuse. Name-calling takes the form of attaching hostile labels to the targeted group. A favorite hostile name in Islamic terror circles for talking about
Israel is the Little Satan. American is referred to as The Big Satan. Ascribing negative stereotypes is a similar technique of verbal violence. Christians are referred to as Crusaders while verses about Jews being like pigs and monkeys are repeated like mantras in mosques throughout the Middle East. Terror propagandists also issue distorted
versions of actual events, and sometimes totally manufacture grievances about the group. One of my favorites is the assertion that Israeli women soldiers dance naked on Israeli tanks to distract the enemy.
Creation of an Atmosphere of Fear
Lenore Walker (1979), who coined the term battered woman syndrome, notes that batterers terrorize women through violence directed specifically at them, and also by creating an atmosphere or environment of expected violence. Occasional violence can be enough to induce an on-going state of fear and powerlessness.
Terrorists similarly use intermittent violence to create an environment of perpetual anxiety for the targeted group. An Islamist text, The Quranic Concept of War by S.K. Malik, explains this appeal. “Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end in itself.” (p. xv). In a similar vein, Abu Hafs, a top Al Qaeda leader, said in an Al Jeezeera TV interview in December of 2001, “…Striking horror, panic, and fear in the hearts of the enemies of Allah is a divine commandment…The Muslim has no other option” (MEMRI, 2001). Each time you stand in line for security screenings at an airport, you are experiencing first hand the effective impact of this fear-induction strategy.
Escalation of Injuriousness Over Time
Not all batterers keep moving up the violence scale, but those who do may graduate to pushing, hitting, choking, using weapons such as a knife, and eventually even murder. The point is that the violence of one day gradually must be stepped up the next to effect the same emotional potency.
Terrorism similarly begins with hate rhetoric and gradually escalates to physical violence of increasing deadliness. Al Queda began with years of anti-American rhetoric, in the 1990’s they launched single building bombings of US embassies in Africa and the attack on the Navy ship the USS Cole. By 2001 they had ratcheted up their violence to
give us the 9-11, a four-airplane coordinated attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center that killed 3000 people in one morning.
Threats Lead to Action
A batterer’s threats must always be taken seriously. The batterer who shouts, “I’m going to beat your brains out!” is priming himself to implement this threat. I have had only once an abuser in my practice who threatened murder, to kill his wife. Unfortunately, the woman was unwilling to leave him. The couple moved from Denver to the mountains. A year or two later, the murder made front page Colorado headlines.
Bin Laden and his organization, Al Qaeda, have long been calling for jihad, for holy war all across the globe against all who do not accept Islam. They have in fact succeeded in creating a global terrorist network. Similarly, when Iran’s Ahmadinajab threatens to use nuclear weapons, his threats must be taken seriously. Saddam Hussein’s
boasts of nuclear weapons turned out to be empty; but because in so many cases the threat is implemented, an abuser’s threats should never be ignored.
Dangerousness Increases with Altered States of Mind
Drugs and alcohol increase the likelihood that a domestic batterer will have a violent episode, and increase the likely extent of harm. Obsessive rumination also primes batterers for violence. Battered wives sometimes report that their spouse will wake them up in the middle of a night to act out the vision of violence he has been rehearsing in
obsessive ruminations. Such ruminations pump up internal rage, increasing the likelihood of an emotionally explosive situation.
Islamic religion forbids the use of alcohol, and relies instead on repetitive rhetoric to induce violence. The video Jihad in America documents how Islamic extremist leaders in the US whip up anger and hate in their followers with religious rhetoric (Emerson, 1994). Suicide bombers similarly are taught to use religious readings to
induce a state of mind suitable for pulling the cord on their suicide vest’s explosives.
Dangerousness Increases with Availability and Lethality of Weapons
Husbands who batter inflict more damage than wives who batter because they have more muscle. Guns in a home increase the likelihood that domestic violence will become lethal.
Terrorism becomes similarly increasingly dangerous to the extent that terrorists have access to more potent weapons. Technological advances now enable more and more power to be packed into smaller and smaller parcels, so terrorists’ capacity to do harm is steadily increasing. One suitcase with a dirty bomb in New York could create a nightmare. And Iran is threatening to build hundreds of nuclear bombs, enough to produce a nuclear winter that would snuff out the globe.
The Cycle of Violence
Psychologist Lenore Walker (1979), who coined the term battered woman syndrome, also coined the term “cycle of violence” referring to the three-phase pattern of many batterers.
· Phase I involves tension build-up with superficial normalcy but increasing verbal
violence.
· Phase II produces a violent episode
· In Phase III the batterer is calm. Immediately after violent episodes a batterer may even appear contrite, issue sincere-sounding apologies, and promise repentance, but the cycle will recur in any case.
The most deceptive of these phases is the calm phase. Even if there are no apologies, the perpetrator may regain credibility by appearing cooperative and even charming, lulling his wife into believing that battering will not recur. The battered wife may also minimize the prior violent episode –“Oh well, it wasn’t that bad.” “My black eyes only lasted a day or two.” She is at risk then too for sliding into wishful thinking, that is, for believing her wish that the batterer has changed.
The United States was misled by third phase calm after the African Embassy and USS Cole bombings. The President, State Department, and Congress indulged in minimizing and wishful thinking that Islamic terror was not a serious danger. Reports of continued risks from terrorism experts were labeled alarmist or right-wing and cast aside
in a manner analogous to the minimizing of battered women.
What underlying concerns motivate battering behavior?
Batterers assert that they only act violently because their wife should have done this or should not have done that. Like John, they are masters of finger-pointing and blame. As John would say, “I wouldn’t have gotten so angry if you hadn’t interfered …” . In fact, however, batterers become violent because coercion is how they make others do
what they want. Anger is how they respond when their feelings are hurt. Hurting others enables them to avoid feelings of shame and instead to feel in control and powerful.
Terrorists similarly always proclaim a rationale that blames the victim to justify their violence. Underneath these justifications however lie deeper motivations. Terrorist leaders, starting back with Mohammed, typically suffered childhood traumas that left them emotionally scarred. When parents humiliate or terrorize a child, as that child
reaches adulthood he will be hypersensitive to anyone or any group that he rightly or wrongly experiences as again making him a victim. He is likely to want vengeance. People who have been victimized as children are prone as adults to follow the false rule, “I am a victim so I have a right to victimize you.”
The Urge to Dominate
Batterers tend to be obsessed by an overwhelming sense that they must control anyone defined as an Other. Perhaps experiences as children of having been harmed compel them as adults to control others, to do unto others as others did to them. In other cases, children learn as kids to enjoy dominating. Khaled Hossenini author of Kiterunner and other books about the growth of terror in Afghanistan describes this pattern. In his novel A Thousand Splendid Suns an abusive Afghani father takes delight in seeing his young son taunting his mother and sister. Under his dad’s
appreciative eye the boy becomes increasingly prone to use anger to dominate the females. Having seen his dad’s brutality toward his mother, the boy was practicing what he was learning that men do.
Domination is the goal of terrorists. They regard all relationships as hierarchical, with those on top controlling and humiliating those beneath them. Words like ‘oppressed,’ ‘subjugate’, and ‘dominate’ pepper their writings. Bin Laden’s supporter Mustafa Kamil writes in his book Terrorism Is the Solution (Bodansky, 1999, p. 403), “Terrorism is the means for calling on the oppressed to terrorize the tyrants.” Similarly, Islamist scholars in Jordan proclaimed in 1999: “O Muslims! Today you are between two alternatives: either you are silent, submissive and acquiescent of what the puppet rulers are doing to you, …. Or you move effectively to seize the power of those rulers… ….” (Bodanksy, 1999, p/ 389).
Hypersensitivity to Humiliation and Shame
Humiliation and shame play a central role in the psyche of domestic abusers. As D. Dutton (1955) explains, “People who have been exposed to shame in childhood will do anything to avoid it in the future. They blame others for their behavior. .. The shame-prone person feels the first flashes of humiliation at the slightest affront and responds
quickly with open rage or humiliated fury. … . .” (pp. 90-91) John for instance at some level know that beating his son for being slow to respond to his dinner call was inappropriate. Feeling ashamed of himself, he attacked his wife for bringing to attention to his overreaction. Shame begets blame.
According to Saudi intelligence profiles of Bin Laden, seeds of hypersensitivity to shame may have been sown in his family situation growing up. The profile portrays him as a loner in a strict puritanical Wahhabi family of many wives and 52 children. The father died in a plane crash when Bin Laden was 11 or 12 (McFadden, 2001). The feelings of shame may have centered on his mother. She was from Syria, not a real Saudi. Regarded as different from the other wives, she, and by extension her son, were quite possibly looked down upon by the other wives and children. Some say she was
basically a concubine, a “temporary wife,” whom Bin Ladin’s father’s married for just a brief period for sexual relations. The whisper of scandal that surrounded her may have deeply affected her son (NY Times, p. B5, Sept 30, 2001).
Bin Laden’s rhetoric expressing hatred of “Zionists and Crusaders” focuses on the idea that the West has “debased Saudi Arabia with corrupting Western influences.”(Bodansky, 1999, p. vii). Psychoanalytic interpreters would suggest that
Saudi Arabia represents his motherland, or mother. The West becomes the embodiment of his father who debased his mother.
The word debased resonates with Arab culture’s larger sense of shame at Islam’s having lost its dominant position in the world. Arab forces in the 7th century retreated from Europe, pushed back by European armies, and have continued to decline in global power and influence to the present time. (Lewis, 1995). In other words, Bin Laden’s
personal sense of having been born into a situation of shame resonates with his culture’s on-going historical sense of shame and humiliation.
The call for jihad seeks the renewal of Islam’s position of power. Jihad understandably attracts many followers to the Islamist banner as it represents the movement from shame and powerlessness to becoming number one.
Anger and Hate
When a child grows up being exploited, abused, humiliated, or neglected, anger remains within him over the years and can easily be rekindled. This underlying wellspring of anger creates a tendency to misinterpret adult life situations that share some detail with a painful childhood situation as if the adult and childhood experiences were one and the same. For instance, John interpreted his wife Rita’s innocent actions—say, leaving dishes unwashed on the countertop–as meaning that she did not care about him.
An abuser’s anger also tends to well up with particular intensity when other conditions in his life are triggering upset. John for instance, feared that he would lose his job and find himself in serious financial trouble. Like dry tinder, his elevated anxiety level, augmented further by shame about his financial plight, made John all the more
vulnerable to quick inflammability. At such times, John’s wife Rita was a handy scapegoat, that is, someone nearby to blame. Blaming a scapegoat displaced talking about the work situation that he felt too ashamed of to be able to discuss.
Terrorist leaders and ideologies similarly utilize scapegoats. Anger at scapegoats
can feel invigorating; it creates a feeling of power. Having an enemy brings coherence
and purpose to their lives and the lives of their followers.
Zero Toleration of Difference in the Other
The domestic batterer finds differences between himself and his spouse intolerable. For instance, as John and Rita went for a walk one evening, John wanted to walk fast when his wife Rita is walking slowly. Instead of comfortably accepting that her pace is simply more leisurely, he interpreted her slower pace as wrong. He personalized
her pacing, that is, took it personally as an attempt to make him mad. Feeling ever more angry, he decided that her slow pace was a power play–and then criticized her in a mocking voice, demanding that she walk faster.
Toleration of differences is learned initially from parents’ responses to their children. Abusive parents have zero tolerance when their child does something other than what the parent wants them to do. The child then learns to hate the parts of himself that differ from how the parent says he should be. As an adult he then is at risk for
repeating his parents’ hatred of any others who are not exactly like himself.
Conflict Resolution Patterns
Batterers as a group are exceptionally deficient in skills of conflict resolution. They get mad often and early, in part because they know no better way of addressing conflicts. When differences arise or something has gone wrong, they flip immediately into demands and ultimatums, attack and defense. Instead of talking, they fight.
Again, the problem began at home. Most batterers had a dad or other close relative who was abusive. If you grow up in France, you learn to speak French. If you grow up in battering household, you learn that when problems come up, you get mad.
Terrorists similarly eschew dialogue. Dominating and destroying are their methods of dispute resolution.
Controlling the Other
Batterers function as if their job is to work a remote control devise that governs their spouse. A boy who flies a toy plane focuses on making the plane do what he wants it to do. An abusive husband’s focus is similarly locked on to his wife. Normal people listen to their own inner drummer and use their energies to guide themselves. Abusers use their energies to guide their spouse—who she can talk with, what she can spend, how she should act, and on and on. Interestingly, like a so-called dry drunk, long after a reformed abuser has given up all his explicitly abusive behavior, the tendency to keep telling the partner what to do tends to continue.
Terrorists similarly fixate on making others follow their rules. For them, control and domination are ends in themselves.
Fixed Beliefs and a Closed Informational System
Batterers develop fixed beliefs about their spouse. John believed “Rita doesn’t care about me,” and “She just wants to keep me under her thumb.” John’s fixed beliefs, like those of batterers generally, were based on a grain of truth plus a bucket of projection. Projection is accusing someone else of what you yourself are feeling or doing.
Batterers sustain their fixed beliefs by rejecting data that does not confirm them, as therapists say, by rejecting non-confirmatory data. For instance, John began an emotional affair with a woman at work. He then began accusing Rita of flirting with other men, a projection that became a fixed belief. Rita one night came home a bit late from work; John was furious and would not accept her explanation that she had been stuck in traffic. He insisted that she had stayed late at work flirting with someone. The only new information that John would take in was a later data piece that confirmed his set belief. The following day he saw Rita smile at a man in an elevator. John grabbed on to this information immediately—it confirmed his belief about Rita’s flirting. That is, he rejected all non-confirmatory data, but absorbed immediately, albeit mistakenly, any piece of information that confirmed his fixed belief .
Terrorists operate with a similarly closed informational and belief system with regard to those they hate. It would be useless for Americans to explain to Bin Laden that we have had no interest in humiliating the Islamic world with the troops we have stationed in discrete isolation on the sands of Saudi Arabia. His data base is closed.
No empathy—Only My Concerns Count
Last but not least, a domestic batterer has remarkable inability to empathize, or even to hear, their wife’s concerns. Her concerns are of no import to him so he ignores or disparages his wife’s attempts to share her feelings. Only his concerns count. Similarly, Al Qaeda has zero interests in America’s concerns, and Palestinian terrorists have zero
interests in anything Israel might want. For them, win-win is unimaginable.
Part II Treatment
We’ve looked thus far at similarities between domestic abuse and its larger twin brother, terrorism. Psychologically, they are essentially the same phenomenon, with one directed at individuals and the other targeting groups.
Now comes the good news. Mental health workers have learned a good deal about how to stop domestic abuse. What does this research and treatment experience suggest about strategies for winning the war on terror? Six principles stand out for me.
1. SAFETY FIRST
The very first objective of any domestic violence intervention is to assure the safety of the potential victim. Toward this end domestic violence professionals might advise the battered woman to keep her purse and keys handy by the door in case she needs to exit her home quickly. The counselor would advise her about safe houses and
discuss with her what other places she could go to when her husband looks threatening. The counselor would ask if there are weapons in the house, might talk through the pros and cons of leaving the relationship, and advise her about calling the police or obtaining a restraining order if her husband looks severely dangerous.
A safety net is also provided by laws that criminalize battering. The American legal system has established that a man’s home is no longer his castle where he can do as he pleases if what he is doing includes violence against family members.
For fighting terrorism, insuring victim safety must be a similar first priority. In Iraq, citizens’ safety was not an American military priority until very recently, which explains one key reason for why America failed for so long in Iraq. For years the Army’s objective had been just to go after the bad guys. More recently however, under General
Petraeus’s new surge strategy, our troops are paying attention also to how to keep the populace safe.
Prior to the surge, American soldiers had been based in remote outposts; now, to
protect the population, they are stationed very visibly in urban centers. These soldiers
work cooperatively with Iraqi tribal and religious leaders and citizen groups to protect
Iraqis who are willing to join the fight against the terrorists.
Why is this strategy working so much better? Up to this point any Iraqi who spoke out against the terrorists, or who joined a police or military force, was subjecting themselves and their families to a high risk of torture and murder. Now, with American forces visible on the streets and working with Iraqis to protect their neighborhoods, the
population has more confidence that they can side with America and still be safe. The result has been a dramatic turnabout. For instance, in Anbar last year only 1000 men signed up to join the Iraqi forces; this year, less than three-quarters of the way through the year there already have been more than 12,000 who have signed up. In addition,
Iraqi citizens are passing on information to the Army about movement of Al Qaeda operatives, enabling our military actions to be more effective.
Why did we not from the outset protect citizens from becoming victims of terror? Our military strategists had been tricked by terrorist rhetoric. Al Qaeda had claimed they were retaliating for the presence of Americans in Arab lands such as the troops we maintain in Saudi Arabia. This ruse was very clever. Our planners believed the ruse that
“visible presence of Western troops in Muslim lands would create more terrorists than it eliminated.” We hid our troops in remote enclaves to make them less visible—thereby rendering them ineffective. Now in urban areas American military personnel are visible everywhere. Safety first. Then go after the bad guys.
2. WIPE OUT THE BAD GUYS.
It used to be that when police responded to a domestic violence call, they would just get the couple to agree not to fight more. That is, they would arrange a ceasefire. Studies then suggested that arrests are twice as effective as simply arranging a ceasefire, so standard police protocols in most areas required police to arrest the batterer. Arrests do
prevent subsequent violence with some batterers—primarily those who are employed and married and therefore feel they have something to lose from another arrest (Sherman et al, 1992). However batterers with less to lose from an arrest, such as those who are unmarried and jobless, tend to react in the opposite manner. In one study, arrests for this
group resulted either in no change or in increased violence. These batterers regarded arrest as only a minor nuisance, or the reprisal provoked anger that in turn lead to more violence.
What do these studies tell us about combating terrorism? First, arranging ceasefires is predictably ineffective in 90% of cases. Second, minor reprisals, like arrests as opposed to long-term incarceration, can increase terrorist resentment and fuel continuation of the terrorism. Terrorist organizations must be totally dismantled, not wounded slightly then allowed to continue to exist. Vis a vis terrorism, only defeat brings peace.
Israel’s dealings with terror groups provide good case illustrations. In the summer of 2006 Israel’s response to Hezbollah’s terrorist shelling of northern Israel from Lebanon was ended prematurely, before full defeat of Hezbollah, with a UN-negotiated ceasefire. The result is that Hezbollah has rearmed and now poses even more danger to
Israel than before. By contrast, to combat Palestinian suicide terrorists who entering Israel from the West Bank, Israel sent troops for several weeks in to Palestinian cities to totally clear the full terrorist infrastructure. The result there has been a radical reduction in the number of suicide terrorists coming from the West Bank.
3. THIRD PARTY INVOLVEMENT
Because abusers are generally stronger than their victims, there often is little the victim herself can do to stop the violence, especially if the batterer is physically stronger, and controls the family purse.
Similarly, terrorists’ have the guns. They also have the power that comes with willingness to use brutality. In political terror as well as domestic situations therefore, third party involvement is essential if terrorists are to be subdued.
Who are potentially helpful third parties? In domestic violence, third parties can include supportive friends and family, counselors, the courts and the police.
Does a continuing presence of third parties such as the courts and the police make a difference? Data on the role of the court system in reducing domestic violence episodes has been enlightening. (Dutton,1995) In a 4 year study of abusers who had been arrested and put on probation, only 4 percent of the men re-offended while they were on
probation. Immediately after their probation was lifted, however, 40 percent of the batterers resumed their pre-arrest violence.
The lesson with regard to ending terror in Iraq and in Afghanistan is striking. American commitment to maintaining a long-term active and visible military presence will probably be essential, though hopefully in roles that involves less danger to Americans. Policy analyst Frederick Kagan wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “When Americans entered al Qaeda strongholds in Iraq, the first question the locals asked was: Are you going to stay this time? They wanted to know if the U.S. would commit to protecting them against al Qaeda retribution. … It is not enough to persuade a Muslim population to resist al Qaeda’s ideology and practice. Someone must also be willing and able to protect the population against the terrorists’ return to violence.”
4. HALT VERBAL VIOLENCE
Studies of domestic violence say that the earlier domestic abuse is addressed, the more effective the intervention is likely to be. Stopping the violence when it is still in the form of words, not yet physical battering, is very important. A young woman who is dating a man who is verbally hypercritical needs to exit the relationship at that point, not
wait until he is injuring her physically as well.
With regard to terrorists’ verbal violence, the healthier countries of the world must agree that hate rhetoric is as unacceptable as physical violence. Stopping the massive hate rhetoric that now soars on cyberspace could be a good first step.
5. MANDATE THERAPY
When domestic abusers are mandated to go to therapy groups for batterers, a significant proportion of abusive men do embrace what they discover. Many appreciate learning anger management skills. Many want to switch from a controlling to a connecting relationship with their girlfriend or wife.
Could there be therapy for terrorism? Absolutely yes. Good therapy is primarily a coaching process. Our military in both Afghanistan and Iraq for some time has been coaching citizens and groups in these countries in skills for democratic nation-building. Soldiers are working increasingly with war lords, tribal leaders, Shia and Sunni religious
group leaders and others to help them use talking instead of shooting to resolve disputes, to build the kind of legal system that can make rule of law feasible, and to work together against their shared problems instead of battling each other.
Have our military men and women been trained for this role? For the most part no, except by virtue of having grown up in the national equivalent of a healthy family, a democracy. Perhaps what we need is a new branch of the military, a nation-building division. If we are serious about replacing failed states and tyrannies with democracy, we need to provide massive help to strengthen the infrastructure of these countries with democracy, that is, to give these countries, long traumatized by abusive tyrannies, the nation-building equivalent to battered women’s therapy.
6. EDUCATE FAMILIES WITH MORE POSITIVE PARENTING AND MARRIAGE PARTNERSHIP SKILLS.
In exploring the sources of domestic abuse and terrorist violence, I mentioned that violence begins at home. The more violence a society allows in its families, the more likely that society will be a breeding grounds for terrorists. Some of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world are in the frontier provinces on the border of Pakistan and
Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in the Palestinian territories. Furthermore, a study by Pape, reported in his book Dying to Win, established that countries that accept violence as fine harbor terrorists; those who do not eject terrorists from their midst, much as healthy individuals can fight off flu viruses to which less healthy individuals would succumb.
An ultimate preventive path for eliminating terror therefore is to identify countries where a culturs of violence currently offers safe haven to terrorists. Most people, men and women alike, would like their children to be beneficiaries of nurturing parenting methods and would prefer to be able to enjoy harmonious marriages. We need to find ways to make skill-training marriage and parenting classes available to them
Is this cultural imperialism? As an author myself of marriage skills training mataerials, my experience has been that leaders in Islamic countries and cultures welcome American parenting and marriage know-how. Here in Denver when I spoke at a local conference on teaching marriage skills; an imam from a large local mosque came up to me afterwards saying, “My couples have so many marriage problems, please can you help us?” When I traveled to the United Arab Emirates, leaders there asked me to set up Power of Two courses so their couples could learn skills for a healthy marriage. Their divorce rates are skyrocketing up as high as 70%. Women’s liberation has hit; women are solidly out in the workplace, and no longer need to remain trapped in abusive marriages, but they lack the models for how to convert hierarchical into egalitarian marriage.
For a fraction of the costs of even one high tech missile, America could broadly disseminate Urdu, Pashtun and Arabic versions of marriage and parenting courses, and could flood the Middle East’s internet, TV and radio airwaves with native language nanny and Dr. Phil programs. This kind of upstream intervention in the causes of terror must become a priority ingredient in the war on terror.
In conclusion, research on treatment interventions with domestic violence offenders does suggest helpful strategies for ending terrorism. I am confident that a military strategy of protecting the victims plus stopping the bad guys will enable America to turn the tide in Iraq and Afghanistan. Third parties such as our military will need to
remain there to sustain these gains over time. And America will need to provide hefty doses of “therapy” to coach construction of the legal, political, and conflict resolution infrastructure for democracy. Finally, we must teach families in terror-spawning areas positive methods of parenting and skills for cooperative, egalitarian marriage if we want to insure that terror will not reemerge in future generations. With these strategies, however, I am confident that America could not only win the war against the current wave of Islamic terrorists, but make the world a place where families and nations all over the globe can enjoy the blessings of peace.
1 Part of the problem is that in many countries in the Middle East men are entitled to beat their wives and
domestic violence is not illegal.
