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Forensic Psychology in War and Terror

© Michael Decaire

A great deal of people I have come across have very narrow views upon the applicability of forensic psychology. Layman’s tend to see forensic psychology as strictly criminal profiling, while that area is by far the least frequent area of employment within the discipline, it is not surprising based on the fields representation in both the popular press and fiction that these individuals believe that profiling makes up a large breadth of the field. Professionals are surprisingly often as narrow minded, while there views do tend to follow the mainstream areas of the field such as corrections, socio-legal, and academic, they do so while occasionally ignoring the more unique and rare areas of the field.

The current world terrorism and war-like atmosphere occurring across the world at this moment has brought to mind an area that I may have failed to mention in the past as well. That is the application of both personality and criminal profiling theory towards the psycho-behavioural profiling of terrorist and military leaders.

This is not a new concept. The use of similar processes actually pre-dates the use of behavioural profiling in North America. Intelligence and military groups have long created profiles of ‘the enemy’ to understand how best to manage conflicts with them or their forces.

I have personally seen profiles done on Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. These profiles can answer several key questions and aid in military, diplomatic, and a bevy of other actions. Profiles of these types of figures would serve multiple purposes. They would suggest how an individual is most likely to proceed on their current military or terrorism endeavour, how they would respond to a particular action by the profilers allies, or how persistent the individual is at obtaining particular goals. A quick contrast between Hussein and Bin Laden could be on the type of stance they portray towards their actions. Hussein while clearly tyrant in nature, is a much more political figure. He is one who will put up facades, be clearly deceptive, and manipulative while trying to obtain his goals. He is also an individual who will back away when overly threatened, and approach from other angles. Bin Laden is a highly rebellious and outspoken individual, very forward and overly self-righteous, he is open with what he does, and challenges others to confront him.

Such variations create extremely different scenarios on how such individuals should be dealt with. While Hussein is more likely an individual that could be forced into compliance (though he will not necessarily completely comply), Bin Laden is an individual who must be confronted directly, and who will not waver from his beliefs irregardless of the obstacles in his way (even death).

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