Osama Bin Laden: A Psychological Analysis

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The most important aspect of running a terrorist organization is recruitment of followers. Osama Bin Laden is an example of a proven effective communicator and recruiter. He found a way to tap into fears and problems of many Muslims. This is described by Freidman as “Muslims suffered from a psychology of defeat. They expected to be weaker than Christians and so they were. In spite of the defeat of the atheist Soviets in Afghanistan and the collapse of their regime, Muslims still did not understand two things — that the Christians were inherently weak and corrupt, and that the United States was simply another Crusader nation and their enemy.” (Freidman, 2007). This psychology of defeat that bin Laden discovered is one of the most potent tools …show more content…
Terrorist leaders prey on the weak and broken individuals to bend them to commit the actions they want them to. Terrorist leaders goal is to change something in a radical way. This could be driven by religion, politics, social issues, or even just a quest for power. One of the most important pieces in many of the successful terrorist organizations is a charismatic leader. Charismatic leaders have natural gifts for speaking and swaying over people. People like Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Charles Manson, and Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi all share one thing in common, they are all charismatic leaders of terrorist organizations. The followers of charismatic leaders are known to be completely devout and radical for their leaders and for the cause they are fighting for. The Washington post has a young man who states “Nasser Muthana, a recruit who apparently joined ISIS about eight months ago. “We have participated in battles in [Syria], and in a few days we will go to Iraq and will fight them and will even go to Lebanon and Jordan, wherever our sheik [Baghdadi] wants to send us.” (Ignatius, 2014). This shows the kind of talent of manipulation that charismatic leaders can …show more content…
In order to have loyal followers the terrorist organizations first goal is to take their new recruits on the path of radicalization. This is described by as “The growth of radical groups is a self‐organizing process driven by aggregation of individual behavior, where the entry catalyst into an extremist cell most likely takes the form of someone who recruits one, two or three other participants.” (Helfstein, 2012). In most instances, the radicalization process is a delicate procedure that is responsible for extremists. The Moghaddam’s model “Staircase to Terrorism” is a great example of how one could fall into being radicalized. This staircase is a six step process that as a person further ascends it they become further confined to the tightening rules of the terrorist mindset. (Lygre, Eid, Larsson & Ranstorp, 2011). The radicalization process can begin once an individual learns about the presence of a certain philosophy they cannot forget it easily. This can start to breed curiosity in the topic at hand and cause an individual to dig deeper into the ideology. This curiosity can spark into some kind of following or interest and could potentially lead this individual to start following the ideology. At this point the individual is starting to become radicalized without potentially even knowing it is occurring. People that

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