Posted on 12/02/2007 9:43:29 PM PST by america4vr
It’s not poverty and lack of education, according to economic research by Princeton’s ALAN KRUEGER.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, policymakers, scholars, and ordinary citizens asked a key question: What would make people willing to give up their lives to wreak mass destruction in a foreign land? In short, what makes a terrorist?
A popular explanation was that economic deprivation and a lack of education caused people to adopt extreme views and turn to terrorism. For example, in July 2005, after the bombings of the London transit system, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “Ultimately what we now know, if we did not before, is that where there is extremism, fanaticism or acute and appalling forms of poverty in one continent, the consequences no longer stay fixed in that continent.” The Archbishop of Canterbury, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, King Abdullah of Jordan, Elie Wiesel, and terrorism experts like Jessica Stern of Harvard’s Kennedy School also argued that poverty or lack of education were significant causes of terrorism.
Even President George W. Bush, who was initially reluctant to associate terrorism with poverty after September 11, eventually argued, “We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror.” Laura Bush added, “A lasting victory in the war against terror depends on educating the world’s children.”
Despite these pronouncements, however, the available evidence is nearly unanimous in rejecting either material deprivation or inadequate education as important causes of support for terrorism or participation in terrorist activities. Such explanations have been embraced almost entirely on faith, not scientific evidence.
Why is an economist studying terrorism?
(Excerpt) Read more at american.com ...
Only the convoluted pathology of moon-bat-ism could generate the unmitigated gall to blame America for 9/11, to idealogically strip the collective shock and torment of 9/11 of its righteous indignation, to exacerbate its psychic agony by blaming America for what it had wrought through 'root causes'.
An entire industry was born that day, a new category within moonbatism's pseudo-science study of America's culpability, championed by moonbatism's High Priest of America-haters as Noam Chumpsky and his ilk.
Whadda ya drinkin', Tequila?
No. It’s stuff I make in my bath tub.
btt
Well, it certainly seems obvious whom God is about ready to destroy by the sheer madness in which they seem deprived of their senses... Teddy bears in Sudan, suicide bombings worldwide, antedulivian theocratic excesses in the form of lashings, beheadings, amputations...
Is that true? Is it just Islam, or something else?
I read the whole article. To sum it up, basically countries that are wealthy but have no civil liberties, like Saudi Arabia, produce the most terrorists.
Islam was not specifically mentioned. But its approval of killing others, either for family honor or for religous beliefs, is a factor I believe contributes greatly to the formation of terrorist thought, beliefs, and action.
There is a huge difference between a person who is willing to die for what they believe and a person who is willing to kill for what they believe. Rule makers who have never tasted their own bloody lip after a taking a punch in the face would probably have difficulty understanding the difference. Fist fights are a microcosm of international relations. If you believe in rational discourse as I do, then you know your opponent establishes the amount of violence required to determine victory. It's a binary equation determined by the actions of the oppressor. In other words, preparedness to respond to an aggressive enemy does not constitute terrorism. Approaching an aggressive enemy in their domain does not constitute terrorism. Defending society against terrorism with deadly force does not constitute terrorism. Unwillingness to retreat in the face of deadly force does not constitute terrorism. This study focuses on the cause of terrorism without considering the causes worth dieing for. Its empirical accuracy belies its civil-imprecision. The study implies all movements are morally equivalent. They are not... and never will be.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the liberals called our founding fathers “terrorists” for the Independence War.
ORIGINAL: Its empirical accuracy belies its civil-imprecision. The study implies all movements are morally equivalent. They are not... and never will be.
CORRECTION: Its empirical precision belies its civil-accuracy. The study implies all movements are morally equivalent. They are not... and never will be.
WIKIPEDIA: Accuracy is the degree of veracity while precision is the degree of reproducibility. The analogy used here to explain the difference between accuracy and precision is the target comparison. In this analogy, repeated measurements are compared to arrows that are fired at a target. Accuracy describes the closeness of arrows to the bullseye at the target center. Arrows that strike closer to the bullseye are considered more accurate. The closer a system's measurements to the accepted value, the more accurate the system is considered to be.
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Why would you need a study? Just look at what Glenn Beck had on his show last week. It’s about 10 minutes long.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1FvholZd3c
Yes, and, in short, it's relative deprivation, in general terms, that "causes" a seemingly prudent person to become a terrorist.
Well that would be at the top of my list for sure.
The author of the report is an infidel from Princeton. What does he know? He is an infidel afterall.
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