Myth– Poverty Causes Terrorism

This foolish idea, long debunked by facts and empirical evidence, has perhaps seen its most severe challenge in the “UK Doctor’s Plot”.  A group of well educated, well paid physicians conspired to commit mass murder for “religious” purposes.  Princeton Professor has a different theory, as reported in the Wall Street Journal:

excerpts:

• Princeton Economist Says Lack of Civil Liberties, Not Poverty, Breeds Terrorism – David Wessel
  “Each time we have one of these attacks and the backgrounds of the attackers are revealed, this should put to rest the myth that terrorists are attacking us because they are desperately poor,” says Princeton economist Alan Krueger. “But this misconception doesn’t die.” “As a group, terrorists are better educated and from wealthier families.” The Sept. 11 attackers were relatively well-off men from a rich country, Saudi Arabia. Examining 781 terrorist events classified by the U.S. State Department as “significant” reveals terrorists tend to come from countries distinguished by political oppression, not poverty or inequality.
  The conventional wisdom that poverty breeds terrorism is backed by surprisingly little hard evidence. The 9/11 Commission stated flatly: Terrorism is not caused by poverty. (Wall Street Journal)

Understanding It–Why has Islamo-fascism Grown as an Ideology?

Shelby Steele analyzes the ideology and concludes that the explanations of “grievance” are completely fallacious.  It’s not territory and it’s not about “getting even”.  He calls it the “saber rattling… of low self-esteem” and discusses how the Islamic World’s inability to compete with the West in the post-colonial era has led to a need to justify why…  

Exerpts:  Life and Death – Shelby Steele
Islamic militancy grounded in hatred of Israel and America has become the Muslim world’s most animating idea. Why? I don’t believe it is because of the reasons usually cited – Israeli and American “outrages.” Every Israeli land-for-peace gesture has been met with a return volley of suicide bombers and rockets. Palestinians have balked every time their longed-for nationhood has come within grasp. They have seemed to prefer the aggrieved dignity of their resentments to the challenges of nationhood. And Hizballah launched the current war from territory Israel had relinquished six years earlier. If this war makes anything clear, it is that Israel can do nothing to appease the Muslim animus against her. And now much of the West is in a similar position, living in a state of ever-heightening security against the constant threat of violence from Islamic extremists.
    Islamic extremists don’t hate the West because they are oppressed by it. They hate it precisely because the end of oppression and colonialism forced the Muslim world to compete with the West. Less oppression opened this world to the sense of defeat that turned into extremism. Islamic extremism is the saber-rattling of an inferiority complex. The writer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. (Wall Street Journal, 22Aug06)