I agree that we need to address the reasons why people are turning to terrorism as well as seeking to prevent and deter it. But the simple equation of violent alienation with poverty and the economic system doesn't fit the facts in this case.

Many of today Islamic terrorists are quite rich, either in absolute terms (Bin Laden) or relative to global living standards, such as the local residents responsible for acts of terror in London, Madrid, Canada, the Netherlands etc, or the western-educated perpetrators of S11. The terrorist attacks in Kenya were committed not by impoverished locals but by well-resourced ethnic Arabs. And most of the world’s poorest countries are not exporting international terrorists (although many do a brutally effective job of repressing their own citizens).

I agree with Richard Posner’s views on this point - “there is little basis either theoretical or empirical for thinking that poverty causes terrorism” and “most efforts to link terrorism and poverty are politically motivated”. http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/05/terrorism_and_p.html

Christopher Hitchens also got it right on this issue – “Random bombings are not a protest against poverty and unemployment. They are a cause of poverty and unemployment and of wider economic dislocation”. http://www.slate.com/id/2127343/ Ask the residents of Bali.

Global poverty is a terrible thing, and there are many good reasons why we should try to eliminate it. But discouraging terrorism is not one of them. Assuming that poverty must be the sole or main cause is ideological laziness that risks giving terrorists the victim status they crave but do not deserve.

Compare the supply of catholic theocrats before and after they were fought and defeated by the revolutionary struggles of the Enlightenment. There is an equivalent struggle in Islamic countries required and in progress throughout the entire Middle East right now. That struggle had been held up by over sixty years of rotten to the core US policies. Instead of supporting the democratic movements, the US policies were to support every rat-bag Autocracy and tyranny going. Now they have been forced by events to get behind the bourgeois revolution instead of trying to resist it.

The former US policies helped produced the mosquitoes that inflicted the outrage of 9/11. This, finally pulled the US ruling elite back from these failed policies. Naturally the pseudo left denies that there has been a change in direction but that is now totally unsustainable.

‘No blood for oil’ was the foolish chant that both supposedly explained the real reason for the war in Iraq and rejected it. Yet the notion that the US ruling elite were capable of organizing the theft of the Iraqi people’s recourses without installing puppets to head the Iraqi government is a complete nonsense. Thus the pseudo left predicted that puppets would be installed (John Pilger named the General who the US would install); they were wrong. Free and fair elections were held and a legitimate government is a reality. The result is that the pseudo left ignore the elections and the requests for assistance from that government.

There is a transparent bankruptcy to the anti war position that is now so smugly being touted as the overwhelming consensus view of ‘progressives’. WMD were obviously not the immediate issue requiring war and neither was oil. So what was the real reason for launching a war of liberation that would obviously lead to elections that would see the empowerment of the Shia and Kurds as proportional power became a reality once the Baathist tyranny based in the Arab Sunni population was smashed?

A full discussion of this drain the swamp thesis can be found or had in the forum section of http://www.lastsuperpower.net/

Who are you kidding?

"The answer cannot be Islam, which has been around for more than 1000 years. This is a recent problem."

If you are going to talk about Islam you must at least research its barbaric bloody history.

Islam started with terror, with the mighty sword and is expanding today with very much the same terror tactics.

Poverty is largely an Islamic problem too - as well as illiteracy.

Instead of spreading Islam in the west, oil rich countries should feed their poor and provide them with a good education.

The "madrassas" type of Qur'an/ / terrorism schools is producing thousands of brain dead militant little islamist who hate America before they could spell their own name.

So instead of blaming the rest of the world for your Islamic problems - why don't you start questioning your own holy books and strange religion and be honest about the terrorist nature of your Qur'an as dictated by your self-proclaimed prophet?

The problem is Islam - the solution is to admit it.

This Article requires some very careful analysis.

"Instead, the supply of terrorists is better explained by the increasing numbers of dissociated and disenchanted people who feel hopeless."

Hopeless about...what ?

Which 'terrorists'?

I think different motives drive different groups.

1/ Sunni Muslims in Iraq.
Motive-
a) Restore lost economic status and privilege.
b) Restore the Shia muslims to their abjectly low oppressed status in order to fulfill a) In short...greed.
c) Remove the US troops who are a hinderance to a) and b) in the vain belief that they still actually have the firepower to re-oppress the Kurds and Shia as they did under Sadaam.

2/ Shia Muslims in Iraq.
Motive-
a)Destroy once and for all the power of the Sunnies who long oppressed them.
b)Build a new more 'Shia' flavored Iraq and forge close ties to Iran, giving them 'superpower' status in terms of Oil control.
c) Remove the US troops who are a hinderance to a) and b)

3/ Muslims in London.
Motive-
Fight the western governments who have:
a) "Invaded Muslim lands"
b) are Preventing the groups of 1 and 2 above from fulfilling their goals.

I would guess though, that the London Bombers were all Sunni.

4/ Palestine related Terrorists.
Again..depends on which group.
a) Fatah... more secular, more about 'loss of land' but not so much 'Muslim' Land though I'm sure this concept is used as a motivator.
b) HAMAS.. Sunni, and very fundamentalist. "Muslim Lands" is the primary issue with them.(as per their charter)

5/ Melbourne/Sydney.
I speculate they are
a) Sunni
b) Moved by attacks on 'Muslim Lands' and "Islam" in general.
c) Radicalized by lying propoganda and highly motivated radicals.

When we speak of muslim violence we won't go to the crusades will we? When we speak of slavery we won't speak of christian Britain, the US and other English protectorates enslaving people will we?

We won't bother to find out that in all the world in recognised "terror" attacks by single bombers in the world since September 11 2001 precisely 1429 people have been killed.

In recognised war zones where the Brits, Russians and US are invading under the guise of the war on terror as many as 300,000 have been slaughtered.

But then we wouldn't want to admit that we are the terrorists of the world would we?

Someone asks about the Pakistani nuclear program while people are hungry - were you aware that 35% of Israelis are living in a state of poverty while the US has supplied them with $91 billion in foreign aid ot build up their military?

If I was a child asleep in Baghdad, or Kabul, Beirut or Gaza City and a 1000 pound bomb was dropped on my house and I managed to survive it is a pretty fair bet I would think the bomber was a terrorist.

What about you all?

History has shown that war is a pointless exercise. How can killing innocent people ever be a solution? The day that war was declared on Iraq or "Terrorism" was the day we gave permission for violence to solve our worlds ills. I just hope and pray that we soon grow up and focus on what is important. Before we blow each other up out of greed and hatred.