Book Review: The Myth of Martyrdom by Adam Lankford

Book Review: The Myth of Martyrdom by Adam Lankford

The Myth of Martyrdom: What really drives suicide bombers, rampage shooters and other self-destructive killers

by Adam Lankford

Link to buy the book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Myth-Martyrdom-Shooters-Self-Destructive/dp/0230342132/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367019700&sr=8-1&keywords=the+myth+of+martyrdom+what+really+drives+suicide+bombers

Inside cover excerpt:

“A startling look at the deepest, darkest secrets that terrorists pray you'll never know

For decades, experts from the most powerful governments and prestigious Universities around the world, have told us that suicide bombers are psychologically normal men and women driven by a single-minded purpose: self-sacrifice. As it turns out, this claim originated with the terrorist leaders themselves, who insisted that they would never recruit mentally unstable people to carry out suicide attacks. As these strikes have become both increasing common and increasingly deadly, no one has challenged this conventional wisdom. These are fearless ideological warriors, we're told, who have the same resolve and commitment to their beliefs as our own Navy SEALS, because they're willing to die for the sake of their cause.

In The Myth of Martyrdom, Adam Lankford argues that these so-called experts have it all wrong. The truth is that suicide terrorists are like most other suicidal people – longing to escape from unbearable pain, be it depression, anxiety, marital strife, or professional failure. Their “martyrdom” is essentially a cover for an underlying death wish. Drawing on an array of primary sources, including suicide notes, love letters, diary entries, and martyrdom videos, Lankford reveals the important parallels that exist between suicide bombers, airplane hijackers, cult members, and rampage shooters. The result is an astonishing account of rage and shame that will transform the way we think about terrorism forever. We can't hope to stop these deadly attacks, Lankford argues, until we understand what's really behind them. This timely and provocative book flips a decades-old argument on its head – and has huge implications for our future.”

The Author: Adam Lankford is a criminal justice professor at the University of Alabama in the US.

Well I have just finished reading this book and can say it was tremendously well-written and thought-provoking. The scope of the mistakes and myths that the author exposes are truly breathtaking and it is actually quite worrying that so many supposed experts have gotten it so wrong, for so long.

The book starts off by looking at cases of suicide terrorism in the world and the expert psychologists' rationalisations of the suicide terrorists' state of mind . The consensus view was that radicalisation gave them extreme views, but they were psychologically normal and stable, and just believed very strongly that what they were doing was the right thing. Lankford argues that this diagnosis only applies to conventional terrorists, and NOT suicide terrorists.

The conventional view makes the mistake of normalising suicide terrorists. Years of data and research has shown that psychologically normal people will generally do anything they can to stay alive. Interviews with regular (non-suicide) terrorists show their revulsion at the idea of suicide terrorism. A common comment was “that's not for me”. This flies in the face of terrorist rhetoric that says, “all of us are ready to die for the cause”. Maybe ultimately, but not in that way they're not. And if terrorists are lying about their intentions, what else are they deceiving us about?

It doesn't take a lot of analysis to come to the conclusion that a person can achieve a lot more for their cause if they avoid death and simply live to fight another day. There are very few cases when a suicide bombing couldn't have been carried out by just dropping off a bag containing a bomb in a crowded place, and detonating it on a timer, or remotely, allowing the terrorist to survive, make another bomb, rinse and repeat. The cases that involve the necessary “death of the actor” as it were (such as flying a plane into a building to demolish it) are the cases where terrorist leaders have taken advantage of suicidal people to get them to carry out their insane plans.

The argument is made that terrorist leaders can trust disturbed individuals to carry out bombings for them. They are not given any official duties or much training, just given a bomb and a target and promised many rewards in the “afterlife”. Suicide attackers may sympathise with the terrorists general cause, but often did not fit the terrorist profile, were they not suicidal and desperate for a way out. This is a blatant example of exploitation of vulnerable individuals by the cruel terrorist leaders and we should have seen through it,

A common “citizen on the street” reaction to the 9/11 attack in New York on the World Trade Center Twin Towers was “who would possibly do such a thing, they must be mad”. Lankford makes much of the argument that this is actually much closer to the truth than expert psychologists had diagnosed in saying suicide terrorists were psychologically normal.. This is why he makes such a acerbic attack on those who he believes got it wrong, in this book. I think he's very probably right.

Lankford criticises Professor Robert Pape strongly. Pape is a well-known proponent of the traditional view. He published a 2005 study of 462 suicide attackers and claimed to find no mental illness, depression, psychosis or previous suicide attempts amongst the participants. Lankford argues that the chances of this actually being true are infinitesimally small (1 in 19 billion), as any group of 462 people would certainly by the law of averages contain some depressed people. He says “either Pape has unintentionally discovered that suicide bombing is the most remarkable cure for mental illness...or there is something seriously wrong with his... approach.”

Lankford tells us that we need to look very closely at specific areas of a terrorist's life to find clues that reveal their mental disturbances. He goes on to carry out “psychological autopsies” of some famous cases such as Mohamed Atta, who was the ring leader of the 9/11 attacks and who piloted one of the planes into the World Trade Center. Lankford takes us through much of his life story and background showing how he was brought up and shunned by almost everyone he knew. The evidence that Atta was a severely dysfunctional, depressed and disturbed individual is extremely compelling. The story that he was just a puppet of Osama Bin Laden and just followed his instructions seems very flimsy – there are documented example of Atta disobeying Bin Laden's instructions. The timescale for 9/11 was very much on his terms rather than Bin Laden's.

Lankford successfully compares suicide terrorists to other suicide killers such as rampage shooters and school shooters. There are many psychological similarities between the people who committed these atrocities. They are largely disturbed and depressed individuals who were socially marginalized and struggled with love, finances or with their work or profession. His study is backed up with data and statistical analysis. If the traditional wisdom were correct, we would have expected to see much less commonality here. A powerful anecdotal example is also given, linking the mental states of George Sodini (a rampage-suicide shooter who killed three and wounded nine women in 2009) with Nidal Hasan (another suicide-shooter who killed 13 and wounded 31 soldiers in the same year). Their motivations are shown as actually being very similar whereas convention would have that Sodini was a madman and Hasan a terrorist. In fact they were both very disturbed, suicidal individuals.

Interestingly, the religious argument is not really brought up in this book. I was expecting Lankford to argue against Martyrdom by saying that Heaven doesn't exist. But instead he underscores the difference between sacrifice and suicide and shows how those who believe martyrdom is distinct from suicide, are deceiving themselves. In his analysis of Anders Behring Breivik, the Norweigan mass-killer who bombed a government building in Oslo, then went to Utoya island to kill 69 young people he considered to be “multi-culturalists”, Lankford shows that Breivik was in fact indirectly suicidal in that he was expecting “suicide by cop” i.e. to be gunned down by security forces. The distorted definition of martyrdom is shown by the fact that Breivik actually believed that he could kill himself to avoid capture or arrest, and this would still be martyrdom and not suicide. Such are the twists of logic that some go to, to make their deaths seem more meaningful.

The section on the identity and worth of true heroes was one of my favourites. Lankford shows us the difference between, for example, a suicide bomber blowing herself up in a cafe and a soldier diving on top of a live grenade thrown by enemy fighters. Terrorists would have us believe that these two scenarios are comparable as they hold martyrs up as heroes. But if we look at the amount of decision time, intention of dying, self-orchestration, and whether the action directly saves or harms others, we can see that these scenarios are very different. The bomber is a terrorist committing suicide. The soldier is a brave hero trying to save his squad-mates while still hoping to survive himself. This is one of the defining distinctions between killers and heroes. Both may have to kill, but the hero also tries to save people, and survive if possible. Lankford says: “True heroes walk among us. They face each challenge that comes their way and try to do the best they can. And then in fleeting moments of grace, they risk their lives to save people from a tragic fate. It may require the ultimate sacrifice. Or it may not. But live or die, it represents the highest possible caliber of human action. And it defines them forever.” Distorting the facts and trying to make suicide terrorists out to be heroic martyrs is a truly despicable act.

A wonderful part of the book describes with self-deprecating detail how even if the concept of Martyrdom is real, and even if the facts and studies contained within the pages were all false, the book still needed to be written and is still extremely useful in counterbalancing the terrorist narrative. So in conclusion we shouldn't play into the hands of terrorists and their “martyrdom” rhetoric. There are many forms of suicide, and killing others at the same time, irrespective of the cause, is just bringing others into your misery because you can't find a way out on your own. A strong take-home message from the book is how we should be on the lookout for those around us who we think may have mental health issues, and get them help.

I've seen another review of this book that claimed it was "undermined by polemic", however, when you grasp how silly the "traditional" opposing view really is (and it's hard not to with the strength of the arguments Lankford puts across), there was never really any other way this could go. Lankford often sounds angry at some of the so-called "experts", but if he's right, and I think he is, so he should be. Because dude, were they wrong.

The book is quite short, only 175 pages of narrative, but there are about another 80 pages of appendices, tables and references as well. But the book sticks to the point and remains clear and concise throughout. I think it is good value, contains important counter-terrorism and vigilance messages that need to be read by everyone, and I would thoroughly recommend this book.