Why So Many Terrorists Get Their Start as Engineers

Sphere ^ | December 29, 2009 | Russell Berman

[1rudeboy]

(Dec. 29) -- Of all the biographical details that have emerged about the Nigerian man who allegedly tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas, perhaps the least surprising -- at least to those who study these things -- is what he studied in college.

The terrorist suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, earned a degree in mechanical engineering from University College London in 2008, just over a year before he tried to demonstrate his skills by detonating an explosive device aboard the Detroit-bound plane. Among violent Islamic extremists, that puts him in familiar company. Indeed, the propensity toward engineering studies is an aspect of the terrorist profile that has drawn increased scrutiny of late from scholars, who have been advancing theories about the high correlation between the two.

In a study published this year, European sociologists Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog researched more than 400 known violent jihadists since the 1970s, including the 25 men involved with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Nearly half were known to have received some level of higher education, and of those, 44 percent were engineers -- including eight of the 9/11 plotters and hijackers. Engineering was by far the most popular field; the percentage of terrorists who had pursued it was more than twice as high as the second-place field, Islamic studies.

"The bottom line is that while the probability of a Muslim engineer becoming a violent Islamist is minuscule, it is still between three and four times that for other graduates," Gambetta wrote in an article in the New Scientist that summarized the pair's findings, which were published in August in the European Journal of Sociology.

[bgill]

Hang around any college forum for long and you’ll see many of the engineer majors are ME. I noticed that a while back but thought it must have been a troubling tinfoil coincidence. Now that there’s a study published, they’ll change their user names to joetheplumber to fool everyone.

[rarestia]

My experience was recent (1998-2002), and you could count the number of white males in most classes on one hand. White females actually outnumbered men in most of those classes, but it also depends on the classes. Larger lectures were a cornucopia of ethnicity, but specific classes, esp. on the chem engineering side of the house, were generally dominated by specific ethnic groups.

[WayneS]

Mine too.

[GraceG]

I know a few engineers, now I am scared, though they are not ROPers.

[WayneS]

Hey!

Who’re you calling stable, pal?

Have you READ some of my posts?

;-)

[txhurl]

......Defending the profession’s contribution to national security, Jacobson also noted that engineers across a range of specialties “become the government’s first defense against terrorism.”

Still, he did give some credit to al-Qaida and its ilk for the logic of its HR strategy: “If I was to recruit terrorists, engineers would be the first guys I’d want.”

---

I bet there’s a bunch of idle muslim engineers what with Dubai crashing.

Although why go through the grueling four years just to end it all on a mission right after graduation?

[catnipman]

Just goes to show you how valuable engineers are to any organization they join, regardless of the position they take! After all, by training, engineers are professional problem solvers, and the best are also innovative thinkers. Engineers aren't simply daydreamers either, as their training includes the tools to actually solve the problem, not just think up the solution. That is, engineers are both thinkers and doers.

Engineers are also taught that their actions have consequences and that they are accountable. After all, if the bridge you design falls down and kills everyone on it due to a faulty design, there's not exactly a whole lot of finger-pointing you can do. Not to mention the fact that your firm will probably be sued out of existence.

That being said, it doesn't look like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was much of an engineer. I'll give him an A for ingenuity for smuggling his bomb on board, though even that may be debatable due to the pathetic security apparatus of the U.S. Nonetheless, since his bomb failed to explode and destroy the planeload of people it was designed to kill, I'm afraid I'd have to give him an F on that part of the assignment. Overall, I'd have to flunk engineer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on his initial engineering endeavor.

[WayneS]

“4 years ago I could not spell engineer; now I are one”

[rarestia]

The problem isn’t with the folks carrying out the attacks. The problem is with the planners of the attacks. You’re right about Islamists being terrorists, but I would argue that many of these bombers are coerced into action by cowards. Those cowards are the ones with the degrees; slowly perfecting their craft in order to make the ultimate boom on American soil.

This asshat in Detroit was likely “handled” and shipped off at no expense of his own.

[pallis]

Some Islamic terrorists like math; therefore, all math literate Muslims are potential terrorists, but that does not exclude stupid, math illiterate Muslims from being terrorists. Profile all Muslims with due diligence. If it talks like a Muslim, walks like a Muslim, dresses like a Muslim, looks like a Muslim, is religiously retarded like a Muslim, it probably is a terrorist. Just when you think it is safe to trust a Muslim, it’s not, so don’t.

[BigBobber]

So what makes engineers more likely to become terrorists?

This poorly researched article assumes cause and effect---that Muslim males become engineers before they become radical jihadists. Wouldn't it be just as likely that Muslim males become radical jihadist before choosing a career as engineers? Because the technical background is useful to their cause?

Regardless, this is another piece of the pattern we ought to be profiling. - Young single Muslim men, not born in America, who have technical or medical backgrounds and who select window seats above the fuel tanks of airplanes.

[afraidfortherepublic]

;-)

Well, I was mostly referring to my own family and friends.

[HangnJudge]

Engineers are interested in problem solving
Once an Engineer becomes convinces as to what needs to be done,
They will follow that path, with particular effectiveness.

They make very dangerous terrorists

BTW, if I wanted to terrorize...

A nuke floated into New York harbor
in routine water traffic
would do nicely

Or,
Parking car bombs in hospitals or schools

Maybe,
Floating a houseboat against a dam
packed with high explosives
scuttle it, then detonate below water

That’s what I would do
If I wanted to cause maximal terror

Pretty tough to stop
once the tools are available

[Redcloak]

I wonder if these Islamic engineering students go radical because Islam doesn't prepare them for the ideas they encounter in Western science.

Western science makes no assumptions about the existence of God. It attempts to explain the universe as a system of naturally occurring events. This runs counter to the teachings of Islam. The Koran tells the Muslim engineering student that Allah is constantly creating the universe and that it is thus impossible to predict how the universe will behave in the future. Allah's will may change and, for example, the speed of light might be 2X10⁸ m/s on every second Tuesday. However, the student's Western professors tell him that the universe is governed by a set of fixed rules and that its behavior can be predicted.

Christian and Jewish engineering students, on the other hand, are taught that God rested from His work of creation and that the process of creation is now finished. It follows from that idea that there can indeed be a set of fixed rules that govern the universe. The Muslim student is left in conflict. His faith tells him one thing, but his chosen profession tells him the opposite. I wonder if the radicalism is an effort to prove his faith in Islam.

[1rudeboy]

"this poorly researched article?"

I provided a link to the journal paper this article is about . . . in order for the article itself to be "poorly researched," you'd have to demonstrate that it misrepresents the journal paper.

If you want to demonstrate that the journal paper is "poorly researched," you probably should take more than 20 minutes to read it before you compose your reply.

[Nervous Tick]

Y'all better watch your backs! We engineers can kill you in so many ways.

My personal favorite is by writing buggy software. ;-)

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

Colleges love them. Colleges welcome them with open arms, because they are dark and belong to a group that promises to eliminate Western Civilization. Colleges give them priority in admissions and free tuition, paid for by the normal people who built up Western Civilization.

Is this madness? If not, then what is is?

[1rudeboy]

I will never, ever forgive you for the keyless entry system on my Audi.

[txhurl]

And make it look like an accident :)

[Nervous Tick]

>> I will never, ever forgive you for the keyless entry system on my Audi.

Thanks! But flattery can’t save you, you know.