Customer Reviews

The Terrorist Trap: America's Experience with Terrorism, Second Edition

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I just wanted to say that the author of this book has no idea what he is talking about as far as the history of terrorism is concerned. He makes assertions with no credible evidence to back them up and turns complicated and controversial issues into oversimplified school-room exercises with his black and white "us vs. them" mentality. Do yourself a favor and read someone who knows what they are talking about.

Jeffrey Simon has written a great deal on terrorism so he is an expert.
He bases this inciteful and readable book on numerous interviews of government officials, former hostages and terrorists giving him a first hand view.

Simon tells the history of terrorism in America making several points. Terrorism is an endless conflict and is bound to grow. Second the US president plays a key role in the effect of terrorism on the Unites States. Thirdly is the interrelationship between terrorism and technology.

Simon begins with the hostage taking by the Barbary pirates. He continues with various hostage taking situations in Algeria, and the hostage situations during Eisenhower's presidency. Here he demonstrates how Eisenhower tried to keep the situation from getting out of hand and educating the public that the situations were different. Then he discusses the many hijacking situations during Kennedy's presidency and the efforts Kennedy went to keep the hijacking situations from overshadowing more important efforts in foreign policy.

Simon describes the two hostage situations during Johnson's presidency, in the Congo and the taking of the USS Pueblo. In neither situation, did Johnson take it personal, or let the crisis effect more important things like his foreign policy.

During Nixon's presidency the PFLP hijacked four airliners and kept them in the Jordan desert. After releasing some hostages, they blew up the aircraft. Eventually all the hostages were released unharmed. Throughout this hostage episode, Nixon kept calm and did not let the situation effect his foreign policy, even though he definitely did not ignore the situation.

Jimmy Carter had several hostage situations, but none was as disastrous for him as the Iran hostage situation, when Iran rebels captured and held American hostages for 444 days. Unlike most situations, not only did the new Iranian government not help regain the hostages, but encouraged the terrorists, using them to gain power. Carter made the mistake of allowing the hostage situation to engulf everything he did, keeping it on the minds of the American people the entire time, and illustrating his own weakness.

After Reagan was elected he immediately vowed to take a more militant approach to terrorists, but gradually found this public avowed approach to be more difficult than he thought. This was a time of common terrorist activity, especially in Lebanon.

Both Carter and Reagan made the mistake of meeting the relatives of hostages. This dragged them emotionally into worrying about the hostages. But only Reagan made deals with terrorists to gain release of hostages, directly opposite of a vow Reagan made earlier. The emotional investment and attempts to make a deal made the terrorists realize the value of what they had and gave them more reason to keep the hostages. Trading for the hostages only made the terrorists take more hostages to gain weapons, so dealing with terrorists was counter productive for the administration.

George Bush did not let a Saddam Husseins capture of hostages control his schedule or stop the Gulf War. Bush did not even reschedule his vacation.

What do terrorists have against America? Simon points out that with the Soviet Union gone, America is the most powerful country in the world, and the largest symbol and target for alienated people. Especially in the mid East where society has been changed by the west and America is the biggest symbol of the west, and the biggest target .

Simon discussed some of the types of terrorists, their motives and causes. He mentions ethno-nationalist terrorists who fight either to gain independence or bring their plight to the attention of the world. Rightwing extremists, who want to overthrow a government a replace it with a more fascist government. Left wing revolutionaries like the red brigade or the red army faction who wish to replace the government with a more oppressive government, in hope that this will incite the population to replace the new government with a Marxist government. Global revolutionaries like the Japanese Red Army Faction who want world revolution. Religious zealots who believe their cause is moral and welcome martyrdom. Animal rights extremists, eco-terrorists and narco-terrorists are also mentioned. We see state sponsored terrorism, which can be attacked by attacking the supporting government.

Simon mentions that terrorism will probably increase as sophisticated technology becomes more available, and alienated people who believe they have no other recourse but violence.

The main result of Simons book is to bring some explanations about terrorism.

After reading "Terror and Taboo", "Fighting Terrorism" and "When the Eagle Screams" I was beginning to think that terrorism was too complex of a subject for anyone to write a reasonably complete and unbiased study of it. This book convinced me that it is possible.

Simon starts out by quickly covering the history of terrorism; showing that it has been a problem for hundreds of years. Covering the last 40 years in much greater detail, he explains how terrorism has evolved to the present.

One area he fails to cover adequately is why the United States is so often a target. However, he does a very good job of describing how different presidents have responded to terrorist threats. Simon shows how the president's emotional response can influence the terrorist to prolong an event such as the hostages in Iran. As a related topic he writes about how the media can influence terrorist events.

Looking at how technology has changed terrorist threats in the past, he makes some interesting predictions for the future of terrorism as well.

Overall this is a very worthwhile read.