When two bombs killed three people and injured hundreds at the Boston Marathon in 2013, the psychological reverberations of the terrorist attack impacted the nation widely beyond the finish line.
The Air Force Marathon was among the many large-scale public gatherings that increased security after the attack.
Larry C. James, right, is a professor in the Wright State University School of Professional Psychology and a retired Army colonel, ... read more
“The fear impacted us even here in Dayton, Ohio,” said Terry L. Oroszi, co-editor and one of the authors along with Larry C. James of a new book, “Weapons of Mass Psychological Destruction and the People Who Use Them.”
Oroszi and James, both of Wright State University, say increased security at the Air Force Marathon and other public events shows how public fear of terrorism can exceed the actual threat terrorists pose. Experts around the country who contributed to the book explore the psychological, cultural, and economic issues behind the phenomenon, the effects of “a weapon of mass psychological destruction,” and how to prevent it.
“Clearly, a community of over 10 million people in the Boston metropolitan area… was paralyzed for many, many months after the bombing,” said James, a retired Army colonel and a professor in the Wright State School of Professional Psychology. “Those were really unsophisticated bombs. They were not WMDs, they were not nuclear weapons, and things like that. But they were WMPDs designed to psychologically harm millions of people.”
One of the Boston bombing suspects, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed days after the attack and his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, now 22, was convicted last year and sentenced to death for his role in the crime.
Terrorists use media coverage of an incident or attack to spread fear, James and Oroszi said.
That fear has perhaps risen in recent weeks with deadly terrorist attacks in in Paris, Egypt, Tunisia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Indonesia and California.
The best defense against a psychological weapon is education of the public to reassure them authorities are working to prevent an attack, they said.
“What we hope to do is through educating the public, the public understands they don’t have to be as afraid, number one, and number two, that that (fear) is the goal of the terrorist,” said Oroszi, who has analyzed dozens of cases of Americans who became terrorists. “We want to take that power away from them.”
Typically, terrorism organizations target young, poor single males in their 20s often disconnected from society, the two researchers said.
“But they’re starting to recruit more females because they can come in under the radar and they’re believed to be less dangerous,” said Oroszi, director of the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense certification program at Wright State. “However, sometimes they are more dangerous.”
A man and a woman armed with assault weapons carried out the deadly shooting rampage in San Bernardino, Calif., last month that authorities later called a terrorist attack. Fourteen people were killed and 21 injured. The two suspects, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, died in a shootout with police.
The Islamic State, which has perpetuated fear overseas through terrorist attacks and the broadcast of beheadings of kidnapped victims, reportedly declared the two martyrs.
Not all terrorists are radicalized Muslim extremists, as often portrayed in popular culture, Orozsi and James noted. Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death and executed for the April 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, Okla., that killed 168 people.
“Timothy McVeigh was not a Muslim,” said James, a retired Army psychologist at the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. “He was a former Army soldier.”
Terry L. Oroszi and Larry C. James will talk about their book at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21, in the Endeavour Room of the Wright State University Student Union in Fairborn.