“The most important thing learned is the difference between the new and old terrorist,” said sociology professor William Daddio, who spoke Tuesday to an audience of over 90 faculty members and students in reference to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
According to Daddio, unlike the old kind of terrorist, the new terrorist is an extremist who works within a “loose affiliation of organizations [with] vague nationalistic ideas.” The new terrorist changes goals and doesn’t have “clear-cut issues,” in contrast to the old terrorist who worked for organizations that generally have consistent goals.
Daddio said that, for the new terrorist, the “purpose of the act is violence itself.” It is also much more difficult to catch these terrorists, Daddio said, because they use “smaller, more powerful weapons” and more sophisticated efforts by gathering more intelligence.
Before, Daddio said, the United States could negotiate effectively with terrorists and, when necessary, infiltrate their networks. Now, however, terrorists operate alone and though they might ask for funds from larger groups, they don’t associate themselves with these groups.
The new terrorist, according to Daddio, is prone to use unconventional weapons such as civilian aircraft to attack non-combatants, as the Sept. 11 airplane hijackings clearly show. Terrorists feel that our country “is evil and must be destroyed; target the population and kill,” Daddio said.
Daddio also discussed the sense of personal tragedy that citizens felt after the attacks.
“These people went to work and didn’t come back … [they] vaporized,” Daddio said. Most Americans felt as if they too could have been victims because “we fly and we work in office buildings.”
This event “shakes the foundation of the community” and is an attack on economic institutions and governments.
According to Daddio, people are afraid because they feel the government “failed in it’s basic societal goal: to protect its people.”
Daddio stressed that the United States should not focus on Osama bin Laden as its main enemy. He said that though it might be natural for Americans to put a face on evil, that will not work with the Sept. 11 attacks. To explain this, Daddio gave an analogy saying, “If you have the mob in New Jersey, you don’t nuke New Jersey.”
In response to a question about the threat of biological terrorism, Daddio said that the use of anthrax, plague and smallpox represent three main threats. The likelihood of their use, however, is very small. He said that the real response to biological threats is treatment, and America is now equipped to diagnose and treat biological threats, but, though there is a rapid response system set up, in the case of a biological attack on a large city the supply of treatment may not be enough.
Daddio’s speech was sponsored by the sociology department.
