Boston

As terrorist outrages go, nowadays, it wasn't all that impressive.  Three people dead, one a child; about 140 injured to varying degrees, some losing limbs.  Compared with the airplane attacks of nine-eleven, the carnage was slight.

As always, it is the motivation that intrigues and puzzles.  I'm assuming, without knowing, that it was a terrorist attack.  At least two bombs were detonated, coordinated to go off at roughly the same time.  Sufficient evidence of technical sophistication apparently exists to suggest that more than one person was responsible.  The attack may still turn out to be another act by a crazy adolescent, or by some guy driven insane after having been fired from his job, but at present that seems less likely.

Let's assume it was a terrorist act by some organization.  What was the motive?  Traditionally, terrorist acts against non-military targets are attributed to one or more of three motives.  The first is the desire to call the attention of an uninterested world to injustices that need to be righted.  Second is an attempt to force a governing authority to realize that it has more to lose than to gain by continuing its present policies; terrorism to win national independence is one example.  And third is the tactical plan of terrorists to elicit a violent and disproportionate response from the government that will gain the terrorists sympathy and new adherents.

None of these motivations make sense unless the terrorists make public their group's identity, or at least the nature of the cause that their actions were designed to favor.  But no one has claimed "credit" for today's attack.  I suspect no one will.

These three motives are "rational" motives: they are designed to help win a battle. I can also think of two "non-traditional," "irrational" motivations, somewhat related to each other, for engaging in terrorist activities against innocent civilians.  Attacks based on these motives have probably always occurred throughout history, but in recent decades they have become increasingly common and threatening. 

One is a sense, possessed by some cultural groups including Arabs, of "collective responsibility."  When a member of a neighboring tribe hurts a member of my own tribe, I hold the entire tribe responsible.  Either the other tribe comes up with acceptable economic compensation for my injury, or I seek primitive compensation -- an eye for an eye -- against one or more members of the other tribe.  When the "tribes" are modern nations, and the perceived injury seems unlimited in its scope and humiliation -- beyond the power of money or cattle to compensate -- it seems only fair to seek unlimited retribution against that nation's citizens.

The other possible motive, less based on cultural beliefs, is simple revenge.  Revenge may be the most obvious motive for terrorism in today's world, the most difficult to deter rationally, and the most frightening.  When a people -- like certain factions of the Arab world, for example, but certainly not limited to them -- feel that they have suffered for decades or more at the hands of the West, that their suffering has included humiliation and disrespect for their own culture and religion, that attempts to improve their lot by either negotiation or intimidation seem fruitless, their response may be to seek revenge.

After suffering for years from a sense of cultural humiliation,  I no longer hope to change the oppressor's policies.  I'm no longer interested in "converting" him.   I'm no longer interested in extorting concessions from him.  I realize that my military and technological weakness relative to him will continue indefinitely, and that nothing I can do will improve my lot.  The only arrow left in my quiver is revenge.  I can make some of his citizens miserable -- his children killed, his friends' bodies dismembered, lives ruined, the relative happiness of people totally uninterested in politics or international relations destroyed in a couple of seconds.

My misery and humiliation will remain, but my chill will be slightly warmed by having spread a bit of misery to my enemy's people as well.  That the people suffering the misery are not those directly responsible for my own is no more a deterrent than is "collateral damage" to innocent bystanders a deterrent to the West's own military efforts.  The terrorists simply realize that their own misery enjoys company.

The acts of revenge may be enjoyed even by those who only stand by and cheer.  Thus we have Mohammad al-Chalabi, a Jordanian Muslim extremist, commenting on today's attack in Boston:

Let the Americans feel the pain we endured by their armies occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and killing our people there.

As modern technology makes the vast differences between haves and have-nots become readily apparent to the have-nots, and as American foreign policy increasingly is viewed as hostile to and contemptuous of the beliefs and aspirations of various religious and cultural groups, and as fast and easy transportation makes national borders increasingly porous, we will find it increasingly difficult to defuse and prevent such attacks of terrorists within our nation.