The Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement in George W. Bush’s ‘War on Terrorism’ Rhetoric.

Despite considerable literature on the Bush administration’s war on terrorism rhetoric, little attention has been paid to its discourse of moral disengagement, leaving an important and still relevant gap that this paper aims to address. Rather than approaching this gap in terms of an archival historical analysis that is disconnected from the present, it proposes an exploratory revisit of the rhetoric that the benefits of hindsight might enrich and, we argue, aid in understanding connections to the current post-invasion turmoil and the gradual ISIS takeover. Having subjected nineteen presidential speeches to qualitative content analysis, we identified a number of moral disengagement mechanisms: moral justification, advantageous comparisons, and attribution of blame, dehumanisation of the enemy, the use of sanitizing language, diffusion of responsibility and minimization of harm. We also identified novel themes relating to American excellence/patriotism, religious ideals and fear- arousing appeals, offering original contributions to the existing literature and advancing our understanding of dynamic, real-world, and highest stakes moral disengagement whose parallels can be identified in today’s political discourses. The detailed analysis unveils the apparent paradox of propagating moral disengagement through a thread of arguments that interweave diversity with uniformity, complexity with simplicity, in effect alerting the reader to the processes of moral desensitisation that the past, current and future “warmongering” political discourses may often rely upon

Tackling cyber-terrorism: Balancing surveillance with counter-communication

Cyberspace has expanded the arena within which extremists and terrorists operate, posing a range of new challenges, many of which are still to be addressed. From propaganda through recruitment to financing and attack planning, the use of the Internet has been growing in size, subtlety and sophistication, often blurring the legal with the illegal. Its interconnectivity, anonymity and affordability have served Muslim extremists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis alike. The present article analyses the online challenges posed by such groups, pointing out how they might be potentially hampered by combining the currently dominant online surveillance with marginalized cyber (counter-) communication. It also highlights the mechanisms of decision making based on matters of principle and honour, the factors that typically drive terrorist actions, showing the inadequacy of the traditional economic models, on which the surveillance largely depends and risks scaring extremists off the radar

Anxiety about Digital Security and Terrorism and Support for Counter-terror Measures

Purpose: This paper aims to determine the potential predictors of anxiety about digital security, terrorist threats and support for high-tech counter measures. Design/methodology/approach: In Study 1, 195 participants indicated their anxiety about digital security systems, data protection and social networking sites. In Study 2, 107 participants indicated their anxiety about domestic terrorism, international terrorism and extremist groups. In Study 3, 261 participants indicated their support for high-tech counter terrorism measures. Findings: Study 1 suggests that whereas anxiety about digital security systems, data protection and social networking sites were positively predicted by right-wing authoritarianism, anxiety about social networking was also negatively predicted by time spent online. Study 2 shows that time spent online was a negative predictor of anxiety about domestic terrorism. Study 3 indicates that the strongest positive predictor of support for all the measures was right-wing authoritarianism, followed by national identity. Research implications: The findings show the relevance of terror management theory to digital security and counter-terrorism. Practical implications: It appears that right-wing authoritarianism and national identity may serve as mechanisms for people to subjectively counter the presented threats. This notion may inform relevant policy and practice aimed at making communities safer and potentially help introduce counter-terror measures with less public backlash. Social implications: When designing counter-terror measures, policy makers should consider compound national identities (e.g., Catalan or Basque people). Originality/Value: The paper makes contribution to underexplored areas of terrorism anxiety and support for counter-terror measures

Psychology perspectives on community vengeance as a terrorist motivator

Purpose: The paper explores the concept of vengeance as a terrorist motivator. Approach: The paper takes a community psychological perspective to examine vengeance in a number of forms. Firstly covering ‘blood vengeance’, it then examines vigilantism and death squads as functional examples of vengeful entities, as well as the morality of vengeance and the impact of propaganda on vengeance as a terrorist motivator. Finally, both group processes and individual factors relating to the promotion and use of vengeance in terrorism are covered. Findings: Vengeance can be conceptualised in a number of ways: as a predisposing factor to individual involvement, a factor that contributes to keeping the movement ‘bound’ together (but which can also negatively affect the group’s strategic logic), a factor in the escalation of violent activity through vigilantism, retribution and retaliation which can result in a perpetuation of a cycle of violence, and as a moral mandate that is ideologically rationalised and justified, with perceptions of righteousness and obligation inherent to it. Limitations: The presented research is limited by the scarcely available data. Practical implications: Efforts should be made to defuse vengeful motivations by tapping into collective identities of communities and incorporating multicultural values. Social implications: Policy makers should be wary of scoring populist scores by ridiculing outgroup/religious elements as that creates potential for vengeful terror attacks. Originality/value: The paper offers insights by renewing the neglected perspective of vengeance in terrorism research

Between a rock and a hard place of geopolitically sensitive threats – critical incidents and decision inertia

While the SAFE-T model of decision making emphasizes naturalistic decision making, its potential for cross-comparative analysis of incidents with global implications remains underutilized, which the current paper aims to address. To this end, it draws upon open-source reports from unclassified American, British and Russian intelligence reports to explore the management of three types of 10 high-profile geopolitically sensitive threats from across the globe (verifying potential terrorist identity, hostage rescue and national/international security). Defining features of such incidents include decision makers’ ability to prospectively model competing scenarios in which they must select between options and where every outcome looks aversive and high risk (‘damned if you do or damned if you don’t decisions’). A frequent consequence of such calculations is ‘decision inertia’ (a failure to execute an important, irrevocable decision resulting in non-optimal consequences), or ‘implementation failure’ (a failure to make a choice). Combining the benefit of the theoretical framework and hindsight knowledge of the analyzed incidents, the paper facilitates theoretical understanding of decision inertia and failures to act. Encouraging the consideration of multiple scenario endings contingent on a wide spectrum of factors and unique cultural-historical context, it also helps identify past decision errors in order to inform assessment and management of similar geopolitical threats in the future

Fighting Cybercrime: A Review of the Irish Experience

Criminal computer data legislation in Ireland dates to 1991, however its next iteration was not until 2017. Its implementation is still in its infancy and needs an effective, consistent constitutional framework to ensure accountability and action. Irish legislation is important for monitoring 30% of EU data, but is limited in its belated modernisation. Therefore, it is important for personal, criminal, and national security defining cybercrime legislation to review current Irish legislation of technology related crimes. Statistics alone cannot interpret legislative efficacy, and therefore qualitative understanding the experiences of digital security practitioners whose professions are directed by relevant legislation could produce beneficial insights. This research analysed interviews with seventeen digital security experts about their professional experiences and opinions relating to cybercrime legislation. Primary emergent themes were identified as: Awareness and prioritisation, jurisdiction and reporting limits, technological advances and the legislative sprawl of dealing with cybercrime today. This research contributes to Irish legal understandings of cybercrime regulation and technology use today, and suggests how to address legislative developments in the future, based on the experiences of an expert security panel

Online Hate: From the Far-Right to the ‘Alt-Right’, and from the Margins to the Mainstream

In the 1990s and early 2000s, there was much discussion about the democratic and anti-democratic implications of the Internet. The latter particularly focused on the ways in which the far-right were using the Internet to spread hate and recruit members. Despite this common assumption, the American far-right did not harness the Internet quickly, effectively or widely. More recently, however, they have experienced a resurgence and mainstreaming, benefitting greatly from social media. This chapter examines the history of their use of the Internet with respect to: (1) how this developed in response to political changes and emerging technologies; (2) how it reflected and changed the status of such movements and their brand of hate; and (3) the relationship between online activity and traditional methods of communication

A multifrequency radio continuum study of the Magellanic Clouds - I. Overall structure and star formation rates

We present the first low-frequency Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio continuum maps of the Magellanic Clouds (MCs), usingmosaics from the GaLactic Extragalactic All-SkyMWA (GLEAM) survey. In this paper, we discuss the overall radio continuum morphology between 76 and 227 MHz and compare them with neutral hydrogen maps, 1.4 GHz continuum maps and optical images. Variation of diffuse emission is noticeable across the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) but absent across the bar of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). We also measure the integrated flux densities and derive the spectral indices for the MCs. A double power-law model with fixed a1 = -0.1 fit between 19.7 MHz and 8.55 GHz yields a0 = -0.66 ± 0.08 for the LMC. A power-law model yields a8.55GHz85.5MHz = -0.82 ± 0.03 for the SMC. The radio spectral index maps reveal distinctive flat and steep spectral indices for the HII regions and supernova remnants, respectively. We find strong correlation between HII regions and Ha emission. Using a new 150 MHz-Ha relation as a star formation rate indicator, we estimate global star formation rates of 0.068-0.161 M? yr-1 and 0.021-0.050 M? yr-1 for the LMC and SMC, respectively. Images in 20 frequency bands, and wideband averages are made available via the GLEAM virtual observatory server

A psychological perspective on virtual communities supporting terrorist & extremist ideologies as a tool for recruitment

This paper considers the role of virtual communities as a tool for recruitment used by terrorist and extremist movements. Considering involvement as a psychological process and thinking about recruitment from a psychological perspective, the facilitation of online elements important to this process are highlighted in this paper. In addition a short case study taken from the use of the Internet by the Radical Right movement provides examples of how the Internet can be used to promote involvement and encourage recruitment into terrorist and extremist movements