How do terrorists think?

Here is an excerpt from an article by Juan cole.

Terrorists imagine the world in black and white, as full of demons and angels, and place themselves on the side of the angels. Sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer has called this way of thinking "cosmic war." Small terrorist cells arise in part because their members develop a specific way of looking at the world, which they reinforce for one another in everyday interactions. As the group becomes more and more distinct in its views from the society around it -- and more isolated -- its members can cross boundaries of reason and human sentiment, becoming monstrous. [Snip]

Paul J. Hill, who shot down abortion clinic physician Dr. John Britton in 1994 in Florida, was a formally trained clergyman who started out committed to helping people spiritually, not killing them. He became so overwrought about what he considered genocide inflicted on the unborn, however, that he felt compelled to save innocents by killing Dr. Britton. The reverend reflected, chillingly, afterward, "If I wounded him, just shot him in the leg or shoulder, I knew there was an excellent probability that he would return to killing innocent children. In my thinking it just became: I had to kill him."

Becoming a religious terrorist depends on several steps. The first is conversion to a way of thinking by which the perpetrators identify with a core group that they wish to protect, but which they believe is being subjected to great harm. Typically this group is imagined to be composed of innocents or lonely carriers of divine truth, whose existence is both essential and yet precarious."

Learning to think this way is both an individual and a group process. It appears to be effective in producing all kinds of extremists. Fortunately, violent extremists are relatively rare. Unfortunately, not rare enough.

While individuals who conduct terrorist actions (like Paul Hill) need to be held individually responsible for their actions, the isolation and group impetus towards violent action is also important. Or in other words, education and socialization are more important that cops and punishment.