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OF Deathpeople Have Always Told Jessica Stern Their Secrets. What ANSWERS FROM THE SHADOW OF DEATH People have always told Jessica Stern their secrets. What they told her about terror can make all of us a little safer. 28-51 Bostonia_WS17.indd 40 2/1/17 2:20 PM Winter–Spring 2017 BOSTONIA 41 28-51 Bostonia_WS17.indd 41 2/6/17 10:58 AM By Sara Rimer to do was to show he could domi- George Clooney, she is brainy, PHOTOGRAPHS BY JACKIE RICCIARDI nate me,” says Stern, recalling fl uent in Russian, hyperfocused, that meeting in early 2015, a and pretty. Unlike Kidman’s hu- four-hour marathon so intense morless know-it-all bureaucrat, that even as interviewer and in- Stern is warm, self-deprecating, terlocutor parried over countless and quick to laugh, at herself as cups of coff ee and tea, neither got often as not. Her students say up to use the bathroom. she’s a rock star—and a regular Stern was pursuing her own person. She calls herself a nerd. agenda: to understand the hid- Like Karadžić, Stern is trained den motivations behind the story in the art of energy healing— Karadžić insisted upon, the story Reiki, in her case—although in which he is the martyred hero, she didn’t tell him that. Sitting forced to defend his vulnerable at the table with Karadžić behind Serb countrymen against the her, she tried to focus on the en- IN A powerful Bosnian Muslims con- 5 ergy fl owing through her palms. spiring to establish an Islamist “There are 8,000 dead boys and room inside a maximum security state within the heart of Europe. Ways to men in the room with me,” she prison in The Hague, Jessica She wanted to understand how says. It occurred to her, in pass- Stern, a small woman in a conser- he had been able to simultane- Counter ISIS ing, that Karadžić could probably vative black pantsuit, was seated ously justify and deny his role in Propaganda strangle her if he wanted to. The across a wooden table from Rado- overseeing a campaign of crimes guard seated just outside the door van Karadžić, the Bosnian Serb against humanity—serial rape, of their meeting room never even warlord convicted of war crimes torture, death camps, ethnic looked up from his magazine. and crimes against humanity. He cleansing, murder—in his drive 1 “He asks me, ‘What do you feel was found guilty of genocide for to force Bosnian Muslims and Amplify the sto- in your palms?’” says Stern. “I the massacre of 8,000 Muslim Croats out of villages considered ries of defectors say, ‘Nothing.’ I see the look on men and boys at Srebrenica in critical to Serb interests. and refugees his face, and I realize I got an F. from the ISIS- July 1995. At 70, Karadžić was Looking at him, Stern told controlled I’m so devastated, and then I re- still an imposing man, 6-foot-4, Karadžić she was game for territory. Stories alize, omigod, I wanted an A from barrel-chested, with his trade- energy healing. about the hor- this war criminal.” mark mane of white hair intact. He got up from the table and rifi c real lives This is how Stern works. To Stern is a research professor at stood behind her. He instructed of jihadi wives combat evil, she writes in her BU’s Frederick S. Pardee School her to hold her hands in her lap, need to be told, book Terror in the Name of by women who of Global Studies and one of the palms up. “‘Focus on the center God: Why Religious Militants manage to Kill world’s leading scholars of ter- of your palms,’” she recalls him run away. (Ecco, 2003), it is neces- rorism and other forms of violent saying. “‘Think about God, and if sary to understand it from the extremism. The United Nations you don’t believe in God, focus on inside out. To combat terrorism, International Criminal Tribunal someone you really love.’” she believes, it is necessary to for the former Yugoslavia, in Karadžić raised his massive 2 understand the motivations and The Hague—the court that had hands in the air, just inches above Take on ISIS’ grievances behind the religious sentenced Karadžić to 40 years Stern’s head, and moved them, convoluted and political narratives terrorists in prison—granted her permis- palms down, slowly apart and version of Islam off er. To do that, she has spent in a way that sion to interview the former Serb together, back and forth. appeals to more than 20 years meeting leader for a book she is writing potential re- with war criminals and terror- examining the history behind his cruits. Religious ists—Muslims, Hindus, Chris- role in the Balkan war. MEETING WITH TERRORISTS scholars often tians, Jews, neo-Nazis, white Karadžić is a psychiatrist, a In the 1997 fi lm The Peacemaker, present their ar- supremacists, anarchists—in poet, and a devout Orthodox Nicole Kidman plays a govern- guments against the fi eld and in prisons, in Bel- “ISIS Islam” in Christian. He is also a liar and a ment scientist based on Stern’s gium, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, a way that is charismatic master manipulator. role at the National Security boring to the Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and During his 13 years as a fugitive Council during the fi rst Clinton young people the United States. She is one of war criminal in Belgrade, he had administration, when she was drawn to ISIS only a handful of scholars in this transformed himself into a New director for Russian, Ukrainian, propaganda. country who are willing to talk Age guru. Now, in the interview and Eurasian aff airs and head At least some of to terrorists. room where he had been holding of a nuclear weapons smuggling these potential Monitoring her own responses recruits can forth on the glorious Serb past, response unit. Like her movie during her interviews—a tech- be reached via Karadžić abruptly announced counterpart, who chases down a social media. nique Stern honed at the Mas- that he wanted to show her how nuclear weapons–stealing Bos- sachusetts Institute for Psycho- he’d worked as an energy healer. nian terrorist with a US military analysis—her mind and body “I think what he really wanted intelligence offi cer played by become a medium, uncovering 42 BOSTONIA Winter–Spring 2017 28-51 Bostonia_WS17_r1.indd 42 2/7/17 10:17 AM truths that may not be revealed in words. She develops insights into how violent extremists think—insights that US national security and law enforcement offi cials and those in other countries view as important for their work countering terror- ism. That Karadžić could elicit, even in her, a feeling of wanting an A—of wanting his approval— told her something about how he had been able to persuade masses of Serbs to believe what he was telling them: that Bosnian Mus- lims constituted a threat. INNATE LISTENING TALENT People have always told Stern their secrets. She has a bach- elor’s in chemistry from Barnard College, a master’s in chemical engineering and technology policy from MIT, and a doctorate in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. But she credits her innate listen- ing talent, and her intense curi- Stern, with curious about the terrorists the girls. It wasn’t until he put on one of her osity, more than her academic Jack Russell themselves. She had been poring a paramilitary uniform that he degrees, in serving her research. terriers, tells over the court records of Kerry felt like a man. “Jessica began writing and her students Noble, a former leader of a para- “The idea of being violent in to think like working on terrorism at a time a terrorist. military fundamentalist Chris- order to feel macho—it seems so when there was little research, It’s a way to tian group that wanted to wage pat,” says Stern. “I didn’t expect and what was available was only understand war against blacks, Jews, and the it to be true.” why they do of interest to a small community,” what they US government and had been Talking with members of other says Daniel L. Byman, a senior do and how planning to poison municipal wa- violent extremist groups, she fellow at the Brookings Institu- to counter ter supplies with cyanide in 1985 honed an ability to suspend judg- violent tion’s Center for Middle East extremism. before law enforcement offi cials ment during interviews, to em- Policy and a professor in George- broke up the cult and arrested pathize fully—not to be confused town University’s Edmund A. the leaders. After several years in with sympathy, she stresses—so Walsh School of Foreign Service prison, Noble had renounced the that she could follow the mistak- security studies program. “She cult and been released and was en logic that leads perpetrators to quickly emerged as deeply knowl- living in a trailer park in Texas. commit horrifi c acts of violence. edgeable and as someone willing “I decided to call up Kerry Stern has learned that terrorists to take on extremely tough topics Noble and ask him what he may be motivated by reasons that that required hard research.” thought he was doing,” Stern have little to do with religious or Stern, who serves on the recalls. “Then I went to Texas to political ideology. They may be Hoover Institution Task Force on see him. I had no training what- driven by fear, love, hate, friend- National Security and Law, was soever.
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