Getting Back at bin Laden

John Lynn, Distinguished Professor of Military History at Northwestern University, argued that terrorism's key effect on its targets is outrage rather than fear, and that terrorists use "jujitsu" to provoke self-defeating retaliation. He built a typology of terrorism, examined Bloody Sunday and the Provisional IRA, and applied the argument to 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq. A long audience Q&A followed, including a self-described military mother who described being ostracized for opposing the Iraq invasion.