Sageman and tw work this issue the same way: if something doesn't fit your personal narrative, pound away at it until it does fit. A big enough mental hammer can put any square peg into a round hole.

In fact the majority of modern Jihadis are more well-off and more highly educated than their average non-jihadi brethren. The jihadis in Britain are often medical students, for example.

One wonders, too, how Tim McVeigh fits into the narrative. Hmm, not at all. Or how the "answer" in Lebanon isn't preventing the jihadis from assassinating everyone in the "incompetent government" because the "incompetent government" is trying to use its army to eject them.

And if you don't have a big enough hammer to pound your square peg, just pretend the peg is round. Problem solved, narrative proudly upheld.

I read an article in Scientific American where a criminal psychologist profiled suicide bombers. They weren't poor, under-priveleged, unintelligent, or overly-religious. They were generally upper middle-class, well-educated, and politically active. Basically, the equivelant of, in this country, a loud-mouth jackass carrying a picket sign in front of the news cameras. Only the picket sign is a bomb, and the news outlet is the entire planet.

First, I meant suicide bombers after 1980. Second, the Japanese pilots only became suicidal after the threat of foreign occupation was very real. So, the formula still works. The Japanese felt that American, and especially Soviet, occupation would threaten their entire lifestyle and culture so many gave up their lives to protect that.


Yes, it is true that the majority of suicide bombers do not come from the lower class and are educated but there is no single social or religious background that suicide terrorists come from. Suicide terrorists have been lower class to upper class, none to doctorate education, religious fundamentalist to atheist, and so on.

This diversity makes it really hard to find people who will become potential terrorists but there is one factor that all recent suicide terrorists groups have in common, and I have pointed that out many times already.


To back up tw and his source, just because the actual terrorist didn't experience poverty doesn't mean that he or she will be outraged that other people in his or her country are in it. Also, for prevention, tw's source is probably the most effective.

"nothing more than"? No. But he's already applying "bastard" to both sides, and anyone used as a sacrifice in war certainly could be called "poor". I guess you could object to "dumb", but I doubt that would be among the worst things soldiers call each other.

Ironic is that your own quoted post agrees with Sageman. Stage three. Do all or most females who must atone for sins go to stage four? No. Ironic is that UT wants to agrue with a post that agrees with his post.

UT, why do you want to argue? Are you moving to stage three? Many dangerous terrorists are home grown.

Meanwhile, what does it take to create a terrorist? Years of what eventually drives him to stage four. What does it take to stop terrorism once years of mistakes were made? All those problems that justify his anger must be removed.

What does not take to undo terrorism faster? Notice the awesome shock created by the Oslo Accords to undo years of terrorism. Notice what it took Sharon to restart terrorism. Sharon simply tapped into and encouraged the reasons (long nutured biases) that pushed potential recruits into stage four.

Those who think terrorism will be stopped by violence are fooling only themselves. Terrorism is terminated by addressing the reasons for stages one through three. To stop terrorism means going after problems that justify suicidial bombings. Well proven is how wars are avoided. Great leaders ask and get answered an important question. "But what does he see? What is he being told? Why does he believe what he does?"

Only a fool believes shooting a terrorist will stop others from being terrorists. More often, its the other way around. That violence may only encourage others to also move to stage four. Stopping terrorism means going after the reasons why a potential recruit moves to stage three and stage four.

There's only one thing to say to that post.

flaps!

Successful, persistent terrorist movements arise within the nations in the Non-Integrating Gap. There is where the conditions exist to make the stages and the progression through them.

It is simple: no more Gap, no more problem. Though no one with a year's experience of international relations expects Sevareid's Law to go into suspension on that account. The business will still take some time before the Gap is all moving into the New Core nations or the Seam States, a rather muzzy category of nations at a socially turbulent point in the transition.

Damn, I didn't know Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh or Terry Nichols, worked at the Gap.

Yeah I found this news story on DailyRotten.com, and couldn't help but giggle at their creative little headline: "Tard Bomb."

No wonder retail sales have dropped. They lost their star salesmen.

:eek: :lol2: