About 'international recruitment agencies'|Quality and Profits: Reforming International Recruitment
Terrorism has been in existence for centuries in some form or another; however, its presence on the psyche of the world's citizens has been increasing since the rise of the global fundamentalist Islamic movement following the six-day war in 1967. This short-lived war was fought between Israel and its neighboring Islamic states over the land that both Israel and Palestine hold claim. Such Fundamentalist terrorism seemingly reached its zenith upon the advent of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States by the fundamentalist Islamic group Al-Qaeda. This event and other terrorist attacks that have followed have resulted in the government of the United States declaring of a global war on terrorism. With the heightened concern over terrorism many have pondered many questions expressing their concerns regarding who is a terrorist, what are their motives, how are they recruited, if there are any warning signs to look for, and is it possible to prevent terrorism. One such theory that embodies each of these concerns is a theory based on the fact that many Muslim countries in the world are currently midst of a major demographic crisis as a result of a population bulge of individuals between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four that is contributing to the likelihood of increased recruitment of terrorist and subsequent attacks. Many observers question why members of the oversized youth cohort in the Middle East are deciding to live, or end, their lives as terrorist in the fundamentalist Islamic movement. The answer to this question is the theory that the ease of recruitment of Middle Eastern youth is the direct result of their level of education, employment goal realization and subsequent economic prosperity, knowledge and level of belief in their faith, and the resulting exploitation of these conditions in the recruitment tactics and propaganda of terrorist organizations. Before attempting to explore the effect the demographic bulge has on the ease of recruitment of youth into Fundamentalist Islamic terror networks as well as the formation of locally developed, grassroots terrorist organizations, it is necessary to clarify a definition or explanation of specific terminology identified by the theory in question in an effort to avoid miscommunication of any ideas expressed within these pages. These terms include the actual act of terrorism, as it is misused on a regular basis by media outlets and government officials; the individual terrorist and his respective social composition; and the concept of an abnormally inflated population bulge of individuals between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four in the Middle Eastern Region. Definitively defining terrorism is not an easy, some have even claimed it to be virtually impossible. This may help explain its misuse and overuse by those in a range of positions in the communications industry and government agencies. Moreover, it may be the contributing reason for the countless working definitions of terrorism that exist today. In fact, each individual government agency relies on its own individual definition of the word terrorism in their respective training manuals. Each definition of terrorism that is created by various organizations to have more or less breadth in a manner that supports the purpose of the individual group's interest in terrorist activities. Examples of such definitional discrepancies are the differences between the definitions of terrorism as given by the FBI and the Department of Defense. The FBI explains terrorism to be the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. While the United States Department of Defense has a different and far more expansive definition on their books that states terrorism is the unlawful use of-or threatened use of- force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological views. Therefore, the simplest and least politically loaded definition of terrorism, as defined by Bruce Hoffman, will be used for the purposes of this research; terrorism is both the act of violence and the threat of violence intended for and executed with the objective of achieving goals of a political intent. Along with the establishment of a definition of terrorism, comes a need to come to a description of the social make up of a terrorist, an equally difficult task, except aiding in the determination of a terrorist is the ability to collect specific demographic data on terrorists helping to name the average age of a terrorist, level of education, employment percentages, socio-economic status of their family during their childhood, and the faith of terrorists considered to be of current threat. Marc Sageman's research reveals data that supports this description of the social make-up of a terrorist. He concluded that the average age of fundamentalist Islamic terrorist to be approximately twenty-five years old with over 60% of them having at least some college education coming from lower to upper middle class families; however the unemployment level among terrorist reaches as high as 70% in some situations. When determining how these factors contribute to the youths involvement in terrorist groups it is important to make the distinction between how specific age groups within the youth cohorts in question, as these factors differ between those of secondary school-age and post secondary school-age. As it must be assumed that if the average age provided is twenty-years old, then there are very young terrorist pulling the average down, there are terrorist close to the actual average, and there are older persons that are conversely pulling the average higher. The last definition that must be addressed is what is meant by the term youth bulge, which is the term to describe an empirically large group of persons between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five relative to the overall population of adults. This phenomenon is exhibited in the current census data of the Muslim countries, especially when this data is compared to the census data of countries that seem to have a significantly lower number of native-born terrorists. Figure 1 below the age demographics for nine specific countries is displayed alongside a display of the age demographics for non-middle eastern countries not suffering from large numbers of native-born terrorist recruits. The average percentage of youth below the age of twenty-four in Middle Eastern countries shown in this graph is 68% and 32% of which are between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Conversely, the average percentage of youth below the age of 24 in the countries not experiencing inflated numbers of terrorist recruits is 36% and 19% of which are between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. This clearly shows that the age demographics of the youth in the Middle East are nearly double that of the age demographics of the non-middle eastern countries shown, thus leading to the conclusion that there is a significant population bulge of those under the age of twenty-four, and more specifically of youth between fifteen and twenty-four. The data illustrated in Figure 1 has established support for the theory that a population bulge exists within the Middle East, and dissection of the specific descriptors of a terrorist is necessary to arrive at an deeper understanding for why this situation increases may increase the number of terrorists; specifically in the middle east. The first aspect in aforementioned description of a terrorist is the average age of a terrorist is twenty-five years old. While other sources support this data with similar findings. For example, when studying those on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list it is revealed that 90% of these individuals committed their first terrorist act while they were between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-four. Yet another study conducted by the FBI found that all twenty of the suicide terrorists studied was between the ages of sixteen and twenty-eight. Additionally, one of the significant indicators of potential political unrest for the CIA is if a country has a youth population between fifteen and twenty-four that is greater than 20% of the population. The current concern for the possible consequence of the youth bulge in the Middle East on an increased risk of terrorism does not stem from a new-found fear of youth cohorts that is specific to the Middle East. Instead, this concern has arisen from the knowledge of what has been transpired in the past and in other part of the world when abnormally large youth populations exist within a society when compared to other age groups in a society. Such political violence stemming from large youth populations was a present and contributing factor in Sri Lanka, and Nicaragua. The island nation of Sri Lanka, has suffered from a curse of political violence that has resulted in the deaths of at least 10,000 people. In 1971 when the population of those under the age of 25 years old in Sri Lanka was 60%. The economy was unable to support such a bulk of young skilled workers entering the job market and left most of the youth unemployed, the extremist group who called themselves the Janatha Vimukthi Paramuna (JVP) mobilized the unemployed and angry youth of Sri Lanka and sowed the seeds for a deadly uprising. Again a period of political unrest was suffered by Sri Lanka in 1983; after the JVP uprising failed to improve the employment situation, and the youth population remained comparatively large to the remainder of Sri Lanka's population. It was started by the long standing rebel organization that called themselves the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) targeted the large number of disenfranchised youth to participate in their acts of political violence. Sri Lanka's citizens reacted to riots against their organization, and LTTE blamed the government for instigating the riots. So, in response they reacted with guerilla tactics in an all out war against this civilian population of this troubled nation. Nicaragua is yet another country that has experienced heightened violence from large populations of youth. The Nicaraguan story of youth violence also stems out the countries consistently large percentage of youths during several periods in the country's history. This occurrence was first recorded during when the politically driven youth groups of Nicaragua joined in a fight to overthrow the despotic Somoza government. Later, during the 1980's youths took up arms in the leftist-Sandinista army of approximately 134,000 members consisting mostly of members between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five and were responsible for the death and kidnapping of many Nicaraguans. In the 1990s these youths are now demonstrating their discontentment in the form of neighborhood gangs that not only act politically against their governments, but also fighting a deadly war with each others. The level of education of a terrorist appears to have a great deal of influence on the current increase in the recruitment of terrorists in the Middle Eastern region. For those young terrorists of the secondary school age and below, the lack of education and experience of these individuals contributes to the ease of their recruitment; because the education that they receive is from members of terrorist, organizations in schools ran by the organizations of the same. In whereas the education received is geared toward brainwashing their minds into believing that being a terrorist is of the most noble of actions from as young as five years old. For instance, an estimated 15% of Palestinian Madrasas are designed to provide students a form of training preparing them for a future of Islamic Militancy, and a leader of Hamas has stated that his organization likes "to grow them from kindergarten through college" in schools that adorn posters with slogans stating that "the children of Kindergarten today are the shaheeds of tomorrow." In contrast, a majority of those joining terrorist organizations who are of the post secondary age and older are have done so after receiving some college education. A report on the investigation conducted Berrebi in 2003 of Palestinian suicide bombers revealed the educational level of these terrorists to be much higher than the average for the general population; with nearly 60% of the forty-four persons studied having received an education beyond high school, 40% of the suicide bombers having a high school education, and not even 5% of the subjects having less than a middle school education; as shown in Figure 2. From this data it can be deduced that education of terrorist is indeed higher than the average citizen in the middle east, additionally those respondents under the age of eighteen could be inflating the percentage of those with less than or equal to a highs school education; an education that may have been provided by the terrorist organization that recruited the individuals. The population of those terrorists who joined their respective Non Government Organizations (NGOs) after receiving their respective form and length of college education may come as a surprise, since it is a widely accepted myth that terrorists are all uneducated. However, the non-terrorist publics false rationale of terrorists becoming so because they do not know any better maybe no more than an excuse for refusing to recognize more legitimate reasons that young men have for becoming terrorist; the enemies of the world populace. The surprise of discovering this demographic reality leaves one to wonder why an educated individual would find the need within themselves to even entertain the thought of becoming a terrorist. The answer is many of these individuals are let loose into an overly saturated job market in an already dismal employment economy, thus leaving there skills and education unused; leaving the now potential terrorist with an unskilled low paying job that barely scratches the surface of adequately supporting the individual and his hungry family. The unemployment situation is estimated by the World Bank to be so bleak it has suggested that the Middle Eastern region will have to create at least 37 million new jobs to support those entering employment age over the next ten years, additionally it must also create an estimated nineteen million jobs in order fulfill the current unemployment disparity of the area. As far as the terrorists' occupational outlook, one study found that 70% of Maghreb Arabs and approximately 55% of the core were unemployed or involved in low level crime prior to joining; noting one specific example of the terrorist Wadih el-Hage could only find employment in fast food and janitorial services.2 Such unemployment situations leave future terrorist feeling as though society, their government, and the current economic situation of the Middle East have failed them. This anger and can lead to the educated members of the youth cohort who have become members of the lower class, or worse, refugees of recent wars and occupations to more willing to act out in violence and organize terrorist organizations within their own ranks; as this is how the Taliban formed in Afghanistan.6 Additionally, these individuals become sitting ducks to lurking terrorist cells seeking out individuals in such situations, and at times are brought into the membership through the humanitarian efforts of the terrorist organization. Case in point, the terrorist organization Hamas, provides the economically wounded Palestinian victims of the Israel-Palestinian conflict with medical assistance, unemployment assistance, and nourishment with food and water that the official governments of the people suffering such hardships have failed to provide. Upon the reception of such relief, those assisted through the philanthropy of Hamas offer support, both in flesh and in coin, to the political cause of this non-governmental organization.6 Conversely, the reasoning for joining terrorist organization appears to be the polar opposite when examining the economic reasons individuals in the secondary school and younger age group take up arms with terrorist for those. Since most of these individuals are not yet of the proper age to be joining the semi-skilled or the skilled workforce, they do not suffer the frustration of the denial of economically viable employment in the perspective fields they have studied in college. Instead, their economic reasons for becoming terrorists can result from the need to provide for their economically disadvantaged families as some terrorist organizations offer monetary and social benefits to the families of young martyrs. The Martyr Fund, for example, provides the family of a suicide bomber up to $25,000, and Hamas has been known to give such families food, clothes, and $5,000. Other groups provide services such as giving the families of the deceased referrals for more profitable employment, and in some cases aid the families in relocating to better neighborhoods and cities. Compared to the lives the prospective terrorist is living at the time of recruitment and to the prospects of a bleak individual future; accepting such rewards for their families seems noble to the point that refusing such an offer would fill any young man in such a situation with a great deal of guilt. The faith of many terrorists is a central to their role as agents of terror. For those terrorists of college and post-college age, the level of religiosity of a terrorist prior to their joining their respective organizations is difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, it can be gathered that as a result of the lack of employment, and subsequent poverty potential terrorists have suffered immense stress, hunger, and destitution; thus resulting in their feeling an existential and spiritual need to increase their religiosity to supplement the hope they have lost in their despondent reality. The resurgence of faith in those choosing fundamentalist Islamic terrorism as their outlet against the repression they have suffered, so their religiousness is less about adornment for Allah, and more as a road toward casting revenge on their oppressors or those perceived as their oppressors. Such reasoning for faith can easily lead terrorists to their formation of false conceptions of religious doctrine, tradition, terminology that suit the needs of the terrorists. Similarly, it can lead to the ease of terrorist leaders, and recruiters in the use of misinterpretations of the Qur'an and previously ruled Fatwa has to justify their actions and to lure their members for their forces. One of the most memorable instances of such misuse of Islam for American's is the fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden in 1996 declaring war against the United States and its allies. The mere act of bin Laden issuing a fatwa is a misuse of Islam in that a fatwa can only be issued by a member of the Islamic Uluma who are high-ranking clergy of the faith that are extremely educated in the faith, and usually have some level of degree in official Islamic studies. Since bin Laden is not an Islamic scholar, nor a member of the Uluma, he has issued a non-binding Fatwa, as he has no jurisdiction to emancipate such a ruling. Those indoctrinated in radical Islamic terrorism during the adolescent years may find that their extreme religiosity is the product of their upbringing, their schooling, and their need for something beyond their tangible desperation to provide them some form of stability in their chaotic existence. Their gullibility leads recruits of this age to buy into the religious promises of terrorist leaders that include spiritual reward after their death, and the reward of admittance of relatives to paradise in the afterlife. Extremism formed during adolescence may also be the result of their level of cognitive development defined by Erik Erickson to be the stage of identity vs. role confusion when an adolescent is internally deciding who they are and wish to be. This is a time when goals for life are established, and through the acquisition of self-certainty or self-doubt, the existential self is formulated. If an adolescence life is filled with despair and constant rejection and disregard by society they are likely to be filled with doubt in their ability to successful assimilate into mainstream society. Moreover, if they encouraged that that religion is the answer to their confusion and that they will be accepted by their family and in the eyes of Allah for the actions as terrorists they are likely to accept this as the role they were meant to perform in their life. Beyond the tactics already mentioned that terrorist organizations use to obtain new recruits, there are other tactics directly designed to lure in members of the youth population. These tactics are all types of extremist propaganda designed specifically to make young people to feel that terrorism is somehow cool and acceptable way to fight back. For the college age recruit the propaganda is focused on fighting back against the institutions that are holding the back from achieving the goals and success that he long ago set for himself. For the adolescent recruit the propaganda attentive to those exact mediums that draw the attention of adolescents to, and many times the mediums used are the exact embodiments of the fundamentalists preach to be the depraved tribulations of modern society. These methods of fundamentalist Islamic propaganda distribution are similar to those used by western cultures in the recruitment of young men and women into their armed forces; and they include the internet, video games, and television As trite as the suggestion may seem, some terrorist organizations have been using video games to attract young recruits. The video games that are used are not of the newest technology, played on the most up to date game systems, as this technology is expensive to create and exceedingly inaccessible for many in the region. Instead, they are simple games that can be downloaded free off the internet, or they are designed for older consoles, or in earlier versions of software applications for use on almost any computer. Some of the games are as simple as trivia games regarding the history of western hegemony and imperialism. Others are Jihad war games where the player is to fight their western aggressors in both machine and weapon warfare and hand-to-hand combat to win the game. One such game is an imitation of the American game "Under Siege" that is called "Under Ash," in which the players take part in the fight to save Palestine from the Zion invaders with various acts of violence against Israeli's. Another game similar to space invaders has an introduction that is tremendously with anti-western propaganda loaded into its storyline: The year is 2214. United under the banner of Islam, soldier of Allah have successfully conquered the world, reestablishing the global Caliphate. No longer do infidel forces threaten the ummah, the global community of Islamic believers. No longer are "good" Muslims tempted by the manipulative forces of commercialism or sexuality. By clicking on "New Game,"this puritanical utopia is whisked into a state of chaos as it faces an impending attack by infidel space invaders. Only "you" can save it... Additionally, video games are available for preschool aged children that are not violent in content. However under the warm and fuzzy exterior of children's games such as Two Bunny Race and Build a Mosque hid an extremist agenda in that the games players would assume the role of South Lebanese farmers that joined the ranks of the Palestinian resistance and achieving higher levels in the game meant the players would earn a higher rank in the resistance. The internet is yet another electronic medium used by terrorist organization to recruit new members from the large population of youth in the Middle East. The internet is useful to these groups in the same way they are helpful to any business or organization in that it reaches an incredibly large audience at a fairly low cost. According to a release by the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and governmental affairs, states that websites launched by terrorist organizations enable them to easily reach youths across borders, and on these websites they can find tutorials on bringing down helicopters, receive communication from terrorist leaders, read messages from already deceased suicide bombers, and even watch the executions of those kidnapped by terrorists. There are approximately greater than 4,000 websites that contain such jihad-based propaganda that are sustaining a real challenge to counter-terrorism operations in that they are finding it hard to keep speed with the creation of new websites and the spread of the information they propagate. Moreover, Dr. Fayiz Abdallah al-Shihri advises that they youth may not always be originally turning to the internet looking for ways to join a terrorist organization, instead they are turning to the internet to look for answers to their problems and finding the answers to those problems from the wrong sources that are spreading such radical ideologies as Takfiri that names others as nonbelievers. Television is yet another media resource used by terrorists that carries an even greater access to it by the disenchanted youth of the Middle East. The first of these is not programs directly distributed by the terrorist groups themselves; instead it is the act of media organizations, mainstream and otherwise, broadcast of the terrorist attacks themselves. The reason the media's attention to the acts of terror is a recruitment tool, is those disenchanted early twenty-something's who may have entertained extremist ideologies are watching these stories unfold from within their middle eastern homes and may except these acts of terror as a victory for their people; moreover a victory that has been won not by the governments that failed them, but by the people themselves. Yet, it is not just the transmission of the violent acts of terrorists that act as recruitment tools. It is the airing of speeches given by terrorist leaders, because this gives these leaders and their organization a voice that can be heard loud and clear in the living rooms of not only those they are terrorizing, but by those who will head their words as truth to be interpreted as morale building sermons. Take the numerous speeches of Osama bin Laden that have been televised worldwide; these speeches are more than just a warning to the "infidels" with whom he has waged war. They are motivation for those who see him as a legitimate role model in that it expresses to these viewers that their struggle has not gone unnoticed by the world because of the extreme measures taken by bin Laden to make this message heard. For instance one 16 minute speech given by bin Laden that aired on Al-Jazeera is considered a rallying call for Al-Qaeda as he is quoted advising people to fight back against the United State's invasion of Iraq as the invasion is an act of war against all Muslims, and is quoted as saying "the fighting should be in the name of God only, not in the name of national ideologies, nor to seek victory for the ignorant governments that rule all Arab states, including Iraq...All Muslims have to begin jihad against this unjust war." In addition to the encouragement this literally offers potential terrorist to act, the attention and airtime provided to Osama bin Laden only provides youth cohorts the lesson that if they remain peaceful, and law-abiding their struggle will continue to be go unnoticed, but if they act in a manner that is horrifying to the world populace; that population will actually stop and pay attention. Further to the mostly inadvertent side effect of media coverage of terrorist acts and speeches, there are television programs aimed in some parts of the middle east directly aimed at the radicalization of children from preschool through secondary school. For example, Hamas began to air their own television station called Al Aqsa shortly after taking office as the party in control of Gaza. On this station several extremist ideological television shows are aired. One that is aimed at children is a call in television show that indoctrinates children with anti-Semitic and anti-Western rhetoric, where child guest's on the show chant "With soul and blood we redeem al-Aqsa, on the path of righteousness we'll proceed to al-Aqsa," where after the host of the show speaks the praises of Hamas party members, and instruct the children to carry the "carry the banner of Islam, the right path, to respond to the aggressors." More famously, on Hamas' television network is the character that resembles Mickey Mouse names Farfur. On this program the mouse advocated an anti-Israeli message to his young viewer, and recently they show had the mouse beaten to death by a land hungry Israeli and replaced by a Bee named Nahoul. The bee character uses the death of the mouse, said to be his cousin, to speak with more extreme outrage against the Israeli's, and is quoted saying ''I want to continue on the path of Farfur, the path of 'Islam is the solution.' The path of heroism, the path of martyrdom, the path of jihad warriors...In the name of Farfur, we shall take revenge on the enemies of Allah, the murderers of the prophets, the murderers of innocent children, until Al Aksa will be liberated from their filth.'' When questioned about the morality of producing this type of extremist programming aimed at children and youths the senior director of the station, Samir Abu Mohsen, "It hurts us so much when the international community misunderstands us...Nahoul isn't for teaching hate. It's for teaching children to think in the right way, to socialize them in our culture's way of life, and, of course, to remind them of their rights to the land that was taken from us." However, it is very difficult for observers to buy into such a statement provided by Abu Muhsen, when the transcripts of the show blatant hate in their cry for children to wish for a murderous revenge on the said enemies of Allah. Those who have already joined the ranks of Middle Eastern maybe beyond the hope of rehabilitation from the brainwashing received from terrorist training camps, and the internally born hatred of their own societies and the societies of those seen as infidels and enemies of Islam. But, there must be some hope for those not yet taken by hatred and need to partake in violent acts against other humans, innocent or not. Therefore, the possibility of stopping the cycle children and young adults from falling into the hands of terrorist recruiters exists. Several fairly practical theories have been proposed that providing students an outlet to peacefully voice their concerns to listening ears can decrease the percentage Arab youths turning to violence, others feel that we need to increase the employment opportunities for youths struggling to find jobs in slow or broken economies, while it has been suggested that it should be waited out since the youths of today will soon enough be the more tame thirty-something's of tomorrow. Since the terrorist organization has tuned into the need of the youth to have an outlet to voice their frustrations and concerns over the hardships they face on a daily bases, it is long overdue that peaceful organizations take an equally aggressive approach toward reaching out to the troubled youth of the Middle East. One effective way to reach these youth that the NGO's are using is by establishing internet forums for youths. One such forum is www.muslimyouth.net where youth of Islamic faith from around the world can post essays, chat with one another, receive legal consultation, and get information on local events where they can become active in a peaceful, progressive manner. Unfortunately, just being given a place to talk about their concerns within the Muslim community is not enough to quench the despair that many of those suffering from the hardships of low employment opportunities in a job market that cannot support the vast number of youths that have come into employment age. One organization is working hard to try to help these youth get what they need most; viable employment in the lagging markets of South America and the Caribbean. This organization is called the International Youth Foundation, and they have a division called employability, that works to connect youths who desperately need employment with those employers that are looking for individuals with the skills the individual has. While this is program is only found in South America. It would be wise for such a project to form within the politically important formal groups and informal groups of men within Middle Eastern society, as this would be may be only way eastern corporations would find this organization legitimate; as a western organization trying to penetrate the employment market of the middle east may find itself unwelcome and not trusted. Unfortunately though, in the seriously lagging markets of the Middle East this is not an easy feat, and is impossible to serve everyone as the jobs simply don't exist, and creating jobs is not at the top of the list of most Middle Easter politicians; although if a few hundred or a few thousand disenfranchised youth can be helped it would be worth the effort for all involved. Nevertheless, the grim outlook of trying to help this large population of youth may appear o daunting to fix, and they believe that the world should try to provide what assistance it can without overextending itself as this is a passing phase. This theory is supported by the argument that the region will experience "middle aging" over the coming ten to twenty years coupled with falling birth rates will lessen the stress the youth bulge has placed on the economy and significantly decrease the radicalism espoused by the young. Another result of waiting out the youth bulge could be the feeling that the youth that pose threats today will be killed off or will grow up and lose faith in the leaders of terrorist organization, the latter being unlikely. However, the aging of this population is not a cure all, as the middle aged individuals will still need to be employed to economically support their families, and this population will eventually reach old age where they cannot work and will continue to put a serious stain on the economies resources with their need for medical care and the budgets of their governments and children. The answers to this problem may not be readily available, or even realistically able to solve the problem; even to the most optimistic of observers. The realities of the reasons for the youth bulge need to be realized on their true face value, not the xenophobic reasoning the problem of the youth bulge are the soul fault of the youth because they are all uneducated, have bad parents, or naturally have a predisposition to violence. As individuals of our own societies we don't see an overwhelming percentage of youth turning to acts of terrorism just because they are young and lack the experience, judgment, and parental involvement to stop them from making the wrong decision just because they grew up in middle eastern society; this is simply because youth are rationale individuals and are capable of making the right choice no matter what continent they live on. Although it maybe counterintuitive to the predisposed opinions of westerners, the reasons for involvement in terrorism is a result of the environmental conditions within Middle Eastern society that may inhibit a young person to adequately pass through the phases of growing up that allow them to find their identity and decide what their role will be in society. The first of these conditions include an increasing number of college educated youths in their early twenties that are unable to find some form of semi-skilled to skilled employment after graduation that is able to put food on their table and the table of their family as a result of the severely lagging job markets in the region. A related outcome of the poor job market is the existance of extremely poor families living in shanty towns and refugee camps who are unable to support their families, so their sons feel it is their responsibility to bring honor and prosperity to their family through acts of martyrdom. Another result of the poverty suffered by youths in the Middle East is their increased existential need to find spiritual support to help them wake up and face their hardships on a daily bases, and to provide a rationalization for who maybe responsible and how those individuals should be handled. Terrorist organizations are extremely attuned to these needs of the youth and have tapped into ways, beyond long-used educational indoctrination, that will reach widespread youth populations for recruitment; this is through the use of technological mediums such as video games, the internet and television to lure future martyrs. It is unfortunate that populations across the globe have managed to allow their predispositions of youth and Middle Eastern culture to remain as obstacles from acquiring viable solutions in assisting the youth caught in the middle of this demographic crisis; all while terrorist organizations have managed to beat the world to the hearts of Middle Eastern youth populations by being able to find out what the youths need and provide it to them. Therefore, those who wish to see the senseless cycle of violence stopped need to learn from the terrorist organizations, and figure out more aggressive ways reach the youth before violent terrorist organizations reach with assistance campaigns more aggressive than those of the terrorists. These programs need to ensure they are providing assistance the youth need and want, while using the same mediums that youths are attracted to and the terrorists are already using; video games, internet, and television. In addition economic relief must be provided by helping governments find real ways to create real jobs, as well as provide better philanthropic support than the terrorist organizations are providing in the devastated communities and refugee camps of the region. 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"Science & Technology: Jihad: Play the Game." The (London) Independent (2003): BNET Research Center. [Online] 01 NOV 2007. 17. "Terrorists Use Internet to Recruit, Train, Launch Attacks." States News Service (2007): LexisNexis. [Online] 03 NOV 2007. 18. Seiff, Martin. "Interview: Bruce Hoffman." UPI (2006): LexisNexis. [Online] 03 NOV 2007. 19. Van Natta Jr, Don. "Anger on Iraq Seen as New Recruiting Tool." The New York Times (2003): New York Times. [Online.] 03 NOV 2007. 20. Westervelt, Erik . "Hamas Launches Television Network." NPR. Available from http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=5186883. Internet; accessed 04 NOV 2007 "Mascot for Hamas TV Show Is a Mouse No More." The New York Times (2007): LexisNexis. [Online.] 04 NOV 2007. 21. Murphy, Dan. "Hamas's Approach to jihad: Start 'Em Young." The Christian Science Monitor (2007): LexisNexis. [Online.] 04 NOV 2007. 22. "American Youth Policy Forum." Youth Programs in Developing Countries: How the United States is Reaching an Important Population. Available from http://www.aypf.org/forumbriefs/2007/fb050407.htm. Internet; accessed 14 NOV 2007. 23. Longman, Philip. "The Global Baby Bust." Foreign Affairs, no. 83, No 2 (2004) |
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