2013

Gremlins of Terror

Charles Kurzman, “Gremlins of Terror,” December 31, 2013. Rationally, you may know that terrorism has proved to be a relatively minor threat to public safety. You may know that murders are rarer than they’ve been in half a century, and wars are less numerous than they’ve been in a generation. You can know this rationally, and still feel insecure. We scare ourselves constantly with movies and television and video games and books that make disaster look imminent, from Gremlins to Percy Jackson to Home Front. One man has made it his life work to help us feel anxious. More…

The Khomeini Wanna-Be

Charles Kurzman, “The Khomeini Wanna-Be,” November 26, 2013. “It is hard to go second in revolutionary politics. The founding leaders get the glory, while their successors live in an unflattering shadow, debasing themselves with each paean to their predecessor. Such are the indignities suffered by Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i of Iran. … Iran’s newly elected president, Hassan Rouhani, has apparently learned this lesson. After his administration crafted a preliminary nuclear accord this week, he obsequiously gave all credit to Khamene’i.” More…

Deaths Tolls of the Iran-Iraq War

Charles Kurzman, “Death Tolls of the Iran-Iraq War,” October 31, 2013. “The Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988 scarred both countries deeply, with horrific fighting at the battlefront and long-range missile attacks on cities. But postwar censuses in Iran and Iraq suggest that the war’s death toll may not be nearly as high as is commonly thought.” More…

The Heresy of the Hijackers

Charles Kurzman, “The Heresy of the Hijackers,” IslamiCommentary, September 11, 2013. What sort of Muslims carried out the largest mass murder in American history, 12 years today? The FBI refuses to release a document that might show just how unusual their brand of Islam was, and further reduce what little sympathy they enjoy among the world’s billion Muslims. More…

The Rights of Roamers

Charles Kurzman, “The Rights of Roamers and the Double Standard of American National Security,” IslamiCommentary, August 28, 2013. The National Security Agency labeled 1,904 foreigners as enough of a threat that it recorded their conversations. Then it let them in the United States. Then, when the NSA realized they were in the country, it stopped recording their conversations. Really? More…

A Rainbow of Repression

Prism’s Paltry Yield

Charles Kurzman, “Prism’s Paltry Yield,” June 28, 2013. How effective are the National Security Agency’s databases in preventing terrorism? Prism and other databases have disrupted over 50 plots worldwide, including 10 or more “homeland-based” plots. This constitutes one-fifth of 1 percent of terrorist attacks worldwide since 2008, and about 10 percent of terrorist plots in the United States. In other words, the NSA’s unprecedented new powers have not put much of a dent in terrorism, and even less of a dent in public safety overall. More…

Mis-Mapping Terror

Charles Kurzman, “Mis-Mapping Terror: Why did an American counterterrorism agency map the entire Muslim world as a terror zone? And why was their map 500 years out of date?” IslamiCommentary, May 31, 2013. “‘The United States is not at war with Islam,’ President Obama said last week at the National Defense University, in a speech that declared an end to America’s ‘wartime footing’ in the fight against terrorism. President Bush said the same when he launched the war on terrorism in 2001: ‘We do not fight Islam, we fight against evil.’ But in America’s sprawling security establishment, not everyone has stayed on message. Until this week, the website of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) — the U.S. government’s primary counterterrorism clearinghouse — featured a map that appeared to identify the entire Muslim world as a terror zone.” More…

Winter Without Spring

Charles Kurzman, “Winter Without Spring,” Contexts, Spring 2013, pp. 14-15. “From Oman in the east to Morocco in the west, most rulers of the Middle East managed to survive the uprisings of 2011. As fears of mass protest have subsided, these autocrats are re asserting control, imposing an ‘Arab Winter’ on countries that did not experience a full-fledged ‘Arab Spring.'” More…

Crippling International Education

Charles Kurzman, “Crippling International Education,” April 26, 2013. “Federal funding for international education has never been so poor. This year’s 5% percent sequestration, on top of a 47% cut in 2011, has brought the Department of Education’s National Resource Centers to their lowest level of support since the program was established in 1959. As Congress begins to consider revisions to the Higher Education Act, which expires at the end of this year, it has an opportunity to reinvest in international education.” More…

Will $500 Billion Make America Feel Secure?

Charles Kurzman, “Will $500 Billion Make America Feel Secure?” April 10, 2013. “On the subject of national security, two unexpected calms lie hidden amid the headlines of conflict. One calm is in Washington, where Republicans and Democrats pretend to debate the national security budget…. This secret bipartisanship masks another unexpected calm: the receding scale of global conflict.” More…

Muslim-American Terrorism: Declining Further

Charles Kurzman, “Muslim-American Terrorism: Declining Further,” February 1, 2013: “Fourteen Muslim-Americans were indicted for violent terrorist plots in 2012, down from 21 the year before, bringing the total since 9/11 to 209, or just under 20 per year. The number of plots also dropped from 18 in 2011 to 9 in 2012. For the second year in a row, there were no fatalities or injuries from Muslim-American terrorism. … Sixty-six Americans were killed in mass shootings by non-Muslims in 2012 alone, twice as many fatalities as from Muslim-American terrorism in all 11 years since 9/11.” More, including data…