The goal of any terrorist organization is not just to instill a sense of fear and dread amongst the targeted population but to affect change as well. Many times terrorist attacks are reported with a sole focus to the causality count. From a western perspective this makes sense. Since the fighting or the World Wars, even before that in mainland Europe, battles have been thought of in terms of body counts. If we kill more of them, we win, if they kill more of us we lose. This simple, black and white, thinking with regards to terrorism misses a very important aspect of a successful terrorist attack- what happens next.
Since the terrorist attack at the Bataclan theater in France the French government has enacted a rolling martial law. This is turn has suspended some privacy rights that normally are taken for granted by French citizens. After the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States in the following months the US PATRIOT ACT was passed through congress and signed by then President Bush. It has undergone revisions but remains largely intact. Both the rolling martial law and US PARTIOT ACT have made inroads into what typical citizens of both countries would consider normal privacy. Giving up this freedom even makes sense to protect against another terrorist attack.
However, the terrorists, then Al-Qaeda and now ISIL view these political changes as successes. It goes to show their attacks have worked. Whether killing 3000, 300, or one singular person the amount of bodies to a terrorist is secondary to what occurs after the attack. Their goal is to change political discourse, erode what a society takes for their normal behavior, and change their targets. This is equally why military strikes alone against Al-Qaeda and ISIL have only degraded their ability to launch terrorist attacks. Their idea’s still remain detached from the amount of bodies their respective organizations may lose. This is different than what western nations faced in World War II; the fall of fascism in Germany was directly tied to the manpower of the Nazi military.
At the time many chuckled at then President’s George W. Bush’s advice to the American public following 9/11, in short, go shop and live your life normally. This advice was exactly the prescription needed to combat the effects of terrorism. Fighting ideas can be difficult, even more difficult when the idea is rooted in a different culture. Every time privacy becomes eroded in the West, or people are more fearful to go out to public places, the terrorists of ISIL get to turn to its followers and proclaim victory. When governments propose more targeted surveillance of ethnic or religious groups (without the groups consent) the terrorists of ISIL get to proclaim another victory. They do so because targeted surveillance, in an uncooperative manner directed at any ethnic group, always becomes moment’s in Western civilization not to be repeated.
Currently I cannot remember the last time President Obama stated “hey just go out and be free, embrace the freedom our country allows” in response to a terrorist attack. We hear “see something say something”. We always hear how we are “winning” listing how many terrorists have been killed since X date in time. We hear how terrorists have lost land. We hear how the terrorists are not an existential threat, even though this is a battle being fought in ideas as much as in physical force. We don’t hear anything with regard to the ideas of freedom vs. tyranny, the tyranny that terrorism represents. Continuing along this rhetorical path allows the terrorists to claim victory as Western society becomes gripped further and further by dread instead of the hope freedom offers.