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| Terror Networks |
| Studies Say Elites Spurred To Terror |
| 2002-11-20 |
| Many Western leaders have suggested that poverty and illiteracy might be the root causes of terrorism, including World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks said terrorism will not end until poverty is eliminated. But a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research by economists Alan Kreuger and Jitka Maleckova found the opposite to be true: Most terrorists are relatively well off and educated, and are reacting to political conditions such as corruption that they abhor within their societies. "Instead of viewing terrorism as a direct response to low market opportunities or ignorance, we suggest it is more accurately viewed as a response to political conditions and long-standing feelings of indignity and frustration," the economists said. "More educated people from privileged backgrounds are more likely to participate in politics," they noted, while terrorist organizations prefer to use highly educated individuals as operatives to carry out acts of international terrorism. The educated ones are the leaders, they use the poor masses as cannon fodder. A second study by Kenan Institute analysts Jennifer Bremer and John D. Kasarda goes even further to say that terrorists are more likely to surface and thrive in Third World countries where the political regime is corrupt, repressive and holding back economic progress. Let's see, and those countries would be.. The Kenan economists, writing in the Milken Institute Review, said several key U.S. allies in its "war on terrorism" are in actuality the prime breeding grounds for terrorism because of their backward political states: Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. Sounds about right. "The origins of this new terror have been dangerously misread. Neither Afghan poverty nor Islam is the problem," they said. "Afghanistan's weak state and rugged terrain simply make it the perfect cave of convenience for a movement whose origins lie in the stalled transitions of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Cave of convenience, what a great line. "As in the previous century, bomb-throwing anarchists are led by charismatic, educated men drawn from largely middle and upper-class backgrounds," they said. Instead of taking inspiration from Karl Marx, "the new anarchists have drawn on a perverted reading of the Koran." |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 Huh! "perverted reading of the Koran"? How else could Muslims read this: "Fighting is prescribed to you.." (Quran 2:216) |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2002-11-20 20:55:42 |