A Terrorist's Primer

A Terrorist’s Primer:

Or 

How to be a Successful Hateful-Evil-Jealous-Power-Hungry Monster 

1. Capitalize on hunger and economic inequity (or other nebulous human right) to stoke anger of local undereducated mob.

2. Link hunger and economic inequity (or other nebulous human right) to bastardized reinterpretation of history.

3. Link unverified, now accepted, history to a local “minority” party.

4. Wait patiently until minority gains attention of local “mainstream” majority.

  a. Mainstream majority will attack it first with words and then with laws and then with bullets.

5. If minority party survives #4, at tipping point, isolate physical attacks against quasi-innocent members of mainstream (ie: supporters of current institutions; mid level bureaucrats and their families are ideal).

6. Build simple, rhetorical binary against oppressive mainstream. 

  a. Condition locals to think in uncomplicated binaries.

7. Attach brand of political minority to an ideology.

8. Attach ideology to a religion.

9. Selectively reinterpret religion to bring in line with ideology. 

10. Build foreign enemies by proxy. A foreign supporter of the existing power structure is an enemy.

11. Attack local mainstream, including innocents, more widely and more violently, brand as attacks against proxied enemies.

12. Continue local attacks until proxied states are forced to respond with words and symbolic gestures (sanctions, “humanitarian” support).

13. Infiltrate local, poorly-organized mainstream institutions under auspices of “protecting” locals. Remove local leadership, redefining movement as legitimate, new mainstream.

14. Repeat 13 in various regional locations until resources worn too thin to sustain conquest.

15. Reallocate resources from conquered territories toward defenses and aggregating power.

16. Consolidate religious and political platforms into one.

  a. build myths—injecting just enough true, verifiable fact to seem legitimate—that include martyrs and “better times” that existed just beyond the memory of the oldest remaining citizens.

17. Rebrand movement, local proxies are no longer enemy.

  a. claim to be legitimate state, even if only outposts are far flung and inconsequential. 

  b. create a new center of state (capital). 

  c. challenge proxy enemies to recognize as legitimate government, knowing they will not.

18. Name foreign enemies as instigators. Call on revisionist histories, religious redefinitions, and contrived ideologies established earlier to prove foreign hostility.

19. Kill or chase off former mainstream, solidifying geographic position and control of resources; rape and/or impregnate locals as possible to establish next generation of sympathizers (and propagate myth).

20. Force formerly proxied, now direct enemies, to harbor refugees on “humanitarian” terms.

21. Name  refugees as enemies/combatants  of new state.

22. Attack refugees on foreign soil.

  a. justifies attack on foreign proxy.

  b. solidifies control over locals: die, leave, or join.

  c. infiltrate refugees with some human weapons to be used in future attacks on foreign enemy.

23. Wait for military response from foreign enemies, directly or indirectly (via original state actors or actual local “freedom fighters” which may or may not be in its own step #1).

24. Fan local “David/Goliath” mythology. 

25. Close down local access to education and information.

26. Set up “military” outposts in civilian centers near schools, hospitals, and religious centers.

27. Blame continued hunger and (now) violent local deaths because of foreign attacks on “civilian targets” on foreign enemies.

28. Solidify hopelessness among locals.

  a. use bastardized religion and promises of freedom in afterlife as only source for hope.

29. In absence of sophisticated weaponry, convert human bodies into portable, expendable weapons; use human weapons locally as practice for foreign attacks.

30. Attack foreign enemy state using humans as weapons.

  a. immediately claim responsibility in name of (bastardized) religion, NOT politics. 

  b. immediately singles out minority groups within enemy state that also subscribe to same religion.

31. Threaten to attack foreign enemy again. This needn’t be followed up with actual attack.

32. Attack allies of (formerly proxied, now actual) enemy using humans as weapons; weaken resolve of allies 

33. Allies of enemy EITHER:

  a. respond to local attacks by standing more strongly against attacks (counterattacks/retaliation); this further endangers locals and further solidifies narrative of “the world is against us.” OR

  b. don’t respond with strength; this plays into the narrative that, “we are blessed and winning.”

34. Threaten to attack allies and/or enemies again. This needn’t be followed up with actual attack.

35. Attacks on the soil of enemies cause internal political strife for enemies, further weakening the resolve against the hostility. Local dissidents fall in line with proof of power of new leadership.

36. (Formerly proxied, now direct) enemies tighten up controls on liberty in exchange for security, perhaps using #7, #8, #9, #10, #16, #18 above.

37. “Terror Option” established.

  a. enemy resources redirected away from their own internal needs.

  b. enemy resources redirected away from humanitarian support for original problem (in #1 above) and toward fighting.

38. Strike foreign enemies and their allies briefly, occasionally, and violently just often enough to maintain “Terror Option” and political paralysis.

39. With world on heightened alert, original local instigators consolidate power and burn through local resources until either:

  a. imploding under unsustainable resource burn.

  b. being destroyed by instigated foreign enemies.

  c. becoming the new institution against which a new set of hateful, evil, jealous, power hungry monsters emerge.

40. Go To #1