Terrorism Analysis: Does the Far Right Encourage Violent Extremism?

The far right, to win votes, capitalises on a fear of Muslim extremism, especially terrorism. That aids extremists by playing into a narrative long cultivated by a spectrum of radicals, including Osama bin Laden.

In this narrative, Islam is under attack from western Christian nations as part of a clash of civilizations. Muslim-bashing in the West becomes further evidence that Muslims are unwelcome in these places and will never be accepted because of their religious faith. Alienation rises, and the most alienated are drawn into the web of the extremist recruiters and potentially into terrorism cast as defenders of the faith. If a terrorist act ultimately occurs, then that is more fuel for the far right. And so on and so on in a potentially long-running cycle.

If this cycle has begun and when it will end are questions that go far beyond the English Defence League and indeed beyond "England".

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Afghanistan Special: How the US Kills Its Allies and Helps a New Taliban Generation (Fitzgerald)

Certainly, the killing of Sahib Jan and the rise of a new generation of more militant Taliban  both point to a severe lack of "granular understanding of local circumstances". What is curious is that American officials and observers have been talking about granular understanding in Afghanistan for years. The author of the Times piece, Scott Atran, is an anthropologist, and it was anthropologists such as Montgomery McFate and David Kilcullen who advocated aid to intelligence-gathering by sending social scientists to map the "human terrain" in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Four years into the "human terrain systems" programme, why is it still possible for special forces to target a "reconciled" Taliban? Why is ISAF inadvertently killing off those Taliban with whom it is possible to negotiate?

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