http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee 274 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 8 / 2016 According to Cooper (1978), the terrorist is someone who is seeking to instill fear or terror on other people43 with a purpose. The victimology of terrorism includes all those people directly affected by its actions, as well as the part of the population that has been deprived of calm and order, including those threatened by the terrorist action, and the innocent citizens and those moved by the terrorist action. An irrational trait of terrorism is the evaluation of its results by the number of victims attained because terrorism does not protect the innocent but rather uses him44. It is always in the interest of terrorism that their actions have an irrational and unforeseeable effect to increase its perturbing effects. In this sense, the strategy of terror is motivated by the result of a previous balance of costs and benefits (rational calculation), where the maximum score is given to the impact attained in the media, and on the population (irrational criterion). This peculiar planning of terrorism has benefitted from the technological progress of weaponry and of the media. The Psychology Professor Enrique Baca believes that there is not a different psycho-pathology between the terrorists and a normal person, that the terrorists are not emotio-nally unstable, but rather they identify themselves with the mission, they are absolutely convinced that they are giving their life by virtue of a hypothetical benefit to humanity (their people), and they totally identify themselves with the leader45. Doctor Baca holds that the following characteristics are found in the typology of the current terrorist: a) an obsessed idea of the terrorist activity (radicalization nucleus); b) rebelling against everything (anti-system); c) rebelling against the occupied power. He defines the «circuit of the terrorist victim» with the following pattern: aggression» surprise» defenselessness» terror» relief and guilt» humiliation» intention of understanding» identification of those guilty (realistic or not, abusive or not)» hatred» vengeance» forgetfulness. The terrorist and his/her fanatic struggle It is difficult to establish a psychological profile of the terrorist; his/her origin comes from all types of families and social strata, and, in most cases, the individual does not tics, Number of deaths by Professional Groups, fundacionvt.org, available at <http://www.fundacionvt. org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=200&Itemid=99> last viewed: 10 February, 2016. 43 COOPER, H.H.A., The terrorist and the victim, Victimology, 1, 229-239, 1976, apud ALONSO- FERNÁNDEZ, 1986, pg. 119. 44 In Spain, ETA assassinated innocent victims like the two-year old Fabio Moreno, or Koro Villa-mudria, 17 years old. ETA also planned to attack nine school buses of the barracks in Intxaurrondo (San Sebastian). See ABASCAL, Santiago, I will not surrender. Without fear of ETA and facing political cowardice., Madrid, La Esfera de los Libros, 2014, pg.101. 45 BACA, Enrique, «Radicalization from the psychopathology», The new dimensions of global te-rrorism., Seminar on Terrorism, the Manuel Jiménez Abad Foundation and the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies (IEES), Saragossa, 18 November, 2015.
REVISTA IEEE 8
To see the actual publication please follow the link above