What is Digg?143 Comments
- RogerStrong, on 10/12/2007, -3/+55This is consistent with what I've read by people who have worked in the Middle East: That Jordanians tend to be much more reasonable than the richer Saudi Arabians, have a much better work ethic, and appreciate those who have a work ethic and education. That it's no surprise that most of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.
They attribute it to slavery. Slavery in Saudi Arabia was outlawed only in 1967, with slave markets still seen by westerners into the 1980s. It's argued that it hasn't truly ended. Work today is done by indentured servants, usually non-Arab Muslims from the Third World, and even today, by outright slaves.
As a result, Saudis still consider *work* so be something that slaves do. Something they're damn proud not to do. The result is a high level of unemployment for the locals. In other words, lots of pissed off people with too much time on their hands.
Self-worth comes not from work done or skills, but from being the possessors of the One True Religion. Alas, Allah doesn't seem to be delivering on his promises of being exalted above the unbelievers these days. All those foreign non-Muslims are supposed to be inferior and bow down before them, and yet they refuse to despite what the holy book teaches. It's Just Not Right. Fortunately the jihad offers a career opportunity, and a chance to right this wrong. - DreKor, on 10/12/2007, -9/+36@ Raw
I suppose if you read the article you could come to the conclusion that terrorism is really caused by a tumultuous political climate instead of religion, but then, what do I know...
If you want to see terrorism, look at Sri Lanka. They've got a pretty high per-capita rate of suicide bombings. It used to be the highest, but I'm not sure on recent numbers. And, amazingly, the terrorists are politically motivated! And, they're not Muslim! - AdmiralAdama, on 10/12/2007, -6/+31If poverty caused terrorism, the people who were blowing up airplanes, subways, and synagogues would be Africans or Latin Americans, who are much "poorer" then the rich Saudis or the middle-class Egyptian kids that went to Europe for college and decided to kill for Allah. Ideology -- in this case radical Islam -- is the instigator, just as Nazism was the instigator in WWII.
- AdmiralAdama, on 10/12/2007, -14/+38"if the expected payoff from suicide bombing is higher than their skill-adjusted expected lifetime earnings in the productive sector."
Can they get 72 virgins in the workplace? That's the main question. - Anrkist, on 10/12/2007, -11/+33The two ask, in effect, what makes someone become a suicide bomber? Their answer: "Since there are returns to human capital in both the productive and the terror sectors, high-ability individuals will become suicide bombers if the expected payoff from suicide bombing is higher than their skill-adjusted expected lifetime earnings in the productive sector."
Terrorism summed up in a nice capitalistic package. I wonder what their credit rating is? - hipnerd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21On top of the work/slavery issue, add in the fact that Saudi Arabia is still run under a medieval feudalism system, complete with a hereditary monarchy. The people living there have absolutely zero say in their governments policies, and they can't stand the U.S. When their government kisses up to Washington to sell oil, it infuriates the average Saudi, and they have no legitimate outlet for the political expression of their disapproval. Terrorist groups start looking pretty good in that sort of environment.
- Carlos1978, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Why is it that poor christian palestinians don't commit suicide bombings?
Why is it that poor oppressed Tibetan monks don't commit suicide bombings against Chinese civilians?
Why is it that highly educated, middle to high class islamic men decided that flying a plane through a building was a good idea? - BryanUT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17@Roger Strong
What you say is very true. My father worked in Saudi Arabia in the late seventies as a site manager for an airport construction project.
He said that for every Saudi he had on the pay roll there was a Pakistani doing the work. He could not fire a Saudi under any circumstance.
He had nothing but high praise for the Pakis and pure contempt for the Saudis. - DivisibleByZero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16I didn't see much mention or blaming of Islam in this article. In fact, the guy even included the Jewush Underground in his studies. Granted, they did seem to focus mainly on the middle east.
The article mentions that suicide bombers see a benefit in their actions. Sure, for the religious extremists, there are all sorts of afterlife benefits. But those aren't the only benefits these guys see. The Palestinians give money to the victims' families, and there's also a general sense of honor. So you can't really take that statement to mean that they're singling out Muslims. - hipnerd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15You're claiming that Mossad and the FBI were involved in the 9-11 terror attacks and then you have the gall to call other people "trolls?" Wow, I guess irony did die on 9-11 after all.
- Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15So, they've got more money and education that most... then why are they still dumb as rocks and blowing themselves up?
Extremist religion ***** up your brain and drains it of all rational thought. - kaiser44, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Because whahabism is taught in Saudi mosques and it has nothing to do with anything more than a ideology that is barbaric genocidal and racist at its very CORE..
The sad part is it is being taught in Mosques today in the U.S.
the Saudis are funding this ideology all over the world and we as a nation allow it to go on here.
we are in trouble,and no one is speaking out at the highest levels of government, because of the devils deals we make with those pieces of *****. - omnithought, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15It makes sense that middle-class people would be more likely terrorists. The poor just want to feed their kids, while the rich don't want to upset their luxuries.
- aceg1357, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18Marxism, which is very prevalent in our school system, had to find some rhyme and reason for terrorism. Poverty causes terrorism was their way to frame the debate as class warfare. The theory doesn't hold water, just like Marxism doesn't work. Real life application shows that.
- ambrosious, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12@macktwo
"If you subtract all of the *synthetic* terror, like OKC and 911, that shows more than plausible involvement of Mossad/FBI - then you see that more Americans have been killed by elephants than terror on U.S. soil"
Guess what, even more people die of heart attacks, cancer and car accidents. But there is a huge difference between an accidental/natural death, and an enormous group of people living in the world trying to kill you simply because of your nationality.
How can you possibly be advocating terrorism and then accusing others of taking our "hatred" somewhere else. We need more social and demographic studies like this one done at Harvard in the attempt that we can begin to understand the reasons and motivations spurring this era of terrorism. That way the nations and people of the world who desire peace and stability have some tools to solve these problems that do NOT involve methods like invasion (which demonstrate an approach clearly without a full understanding of terrorism).
So Macktwo, I say to you, take your message of intolerance and ignorance and shove it. - Liam76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@ dboylon
they had suicide bombings in Iraq befoore the US arrived. They weren't as common because Saddam would make sure their family was punished, that they wouldn''t get a reward and that nobody would celebrate it. Now that isn't the case. - rlh1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10It's all ideology.
Poor Ukranians, Poles, Bulgarians don't pull kids off school buses and shot them in the head like they do in Iraq.
They don't cut the heads off Buddhist monks like they do in Thailand.
It's all Ideology. - kaiser44, on 10/12/2007, -8/+16@ EXPATRIOT. You sir are wrong, the facts do not bare this out, most Asian terrorism is Muslim on ,Muslim or any religion besides Muslim, most of the terror and violence in Iraq is Muslim on Muslim.
AUSTRALIA, Muslim
France , Muslim
Netherlands ,Muslim
U.S., Muslim
Canada , Muslim
U.K Muslim. I can go on. - RogerStrong, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Someone asked me the same question a couple years ago. I was able to find a number of examples for him.
Show us your proof that it *didn't* happen. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -21/+28Rawshark:
>I think if they did, they would find a high degree of correlation and that it is no myth.
Then you would be wrong. There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, any correlation with terrorism will end you having a statistically insignificant correlation between religion and these actions because the population of Muslims is so large and most are not terrorists -- which shows two things clearly: 1) You have no clue what correlation means, and 2) you are a bigot looking for ways to justify hatred based on religion. - Carlos1978, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10BS. Palestinians have been killing jews long before the Israeli state was created.
- pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Try reading the article.
- Detritus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I'd think someone with the name Liam would have a better understanding of IRA history. The IRA targeted and killed many many civilians, including people who have spoken out against them in the media.
I don't think a comparison with Al-Queda is fair (they are more ethnocidal than freedom fighters). Certainly Hamas, Fatah and to a slightly lesser extent Hezbullah, all share the same goal as the IRA... removal of an oppressor from land that they feel is their own.
Many comparisons could be made between the motivations of Fatah and the American Revolutionaries. - RogerStrong, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The hostility between the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds predates the invasion - the Sunni minority (under Saddam) was even using helicopter gunships poison gas against it's enemies. The idea that there were no suicide attacks is just not credible.
They had car bombings - this much is on record. But Saddam controlled the media, and what was on record. Claims that there were no suicide attacks in Iraq are about as credible as Pravda claims that there was no political dissent in the Soviet Union. - motters, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Traditionally throughout history the revolutionaries and malcontents have always come from the middle classes or wealthy elites. The poor are generally too concerned with their day-to-day struggle for existence to be very bothered about politics. From the perspective of the poor and marginalised no political regime (of any flavour) delivers tangible improvements to their life. Only the more well-to-do types have the time and luxury to contemplate lofty political or religious ideals.
- AKBryant54, on 10/12/2007, -17/+22"A comprehensive study of 1,776 terrorist incidents (240 international, the rest domestic) by Harvard professor Albert Abadie"
ha, 1776, get it? - stardeo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5My assertions: The poverty = terrorism dynamic might be a Marxist way of describing how poverty and terrorism correlate. However, the studies may also imply that a capitalistic style of economics with a weak government may actually lead to more terrorism. Albert Abadie states that "The freest countries experienced little terrorism; and the same was true for the most oppressed. It was in the middle - where politics was unsettled and evolving and governments are often weak - that suffered the most." Poverty with a stronger government or wealth with a stronger government may reduce the "human capital" which leads to terrorism (at least in the sense of suicide bombings as giving in the article).
Encouraging strong central governments over wealth based capital systems of economics may help reduce incentives for terrorism. Those strong central governments should also be encouraged to not sponsor terrorist activities at any level (nation-state to training-cell). - SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -9/+13I like how all the PC ***** on Digg are digging down RawShark for stating a FACT. The vast majority of terrorist incidents are committed by Muslims. Chechnya, Taliban, Hezbollah, Washington DC sniper, etc.etc. etc.
@Drekor: RTFA. 80% of the Muslims they polled supported armed attacks on Israel. 40% (approximately) thought there was justification for 9/11!
Anyway, it doesn't matter what percentage of all Muslims; what matters is the percentage of terrorism. Get your ***** head out of your ass.
I'm appalled to see how many liberal idiots think that extremist Islam isn't a cause for terroism. It's those 72 virgins that get guys to blow themselves up. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8@ webcrumb: "Al-Qaida, literally "the database""
Eh.... WRONG. Al Quaida (spelling optional) literally means "THE BASE" as in 'operations' for the global jihad for the sake of allah, the arabic god of death and destruction. - foopirata, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9@bigdavediode
I'm sorry, I may be wrong here, statistics are not really my forte, but I think that if someone did a study on terror/religion correlation, it would be something along the lines of "out of N terror acts, how many were perpetrated by J jews, M muslims, C christians, B budhists" and then check the ratios of N/J, N/M, N/C, N/B (guess you can't divide by zero here so I must have something basically wrong). This has nothing to do with how many Muslims there are and how many of them are not engaged (actively, since most fail to call out against it) in terror activities. - MiNGLED, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10Strange, I seam to remember the Catholic (IRA), Protestant (UDF) and Communist (Red Brigade) terrorists in Europe, the Maoist terrorists in India & Nepal, the ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka...I could go on but the point is obvious, you don't have to be Muslim to be a terrorist, anyone can be one.
- toconnor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@Mullintator
Most of the incidents being analyzed here (> 86%) are not against foreigners.
"1,776 terrorist incidents (240 international, the rest domestic)" - SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@Webcrumb
The mistake of the CIA was assuming that the enemy of our enemy was our friend. Rambo III is all about how valiant the Taliban is. Unfortunately, in reality, the extremist Islam in those Al-Qaeda operatives prevented them from liking us. Indeed, when the leader of a group wants violence for any reason, and the people in it don't appreciate western help (biting the hand that feeds them), they will commit terrorist acts.
How were we to know this would happen? And don't act like it's some big secret the CIA kills people over. Richard Clarke wrote about it; last I checked, he was still alive. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ jakobm: "Oh and good that it mentioned those 19 , Identified by the fireproofed pasports and other documentations.. From the plane where the blackbox was unrecoverable..."
You are insinuating the "Inside job / conspiracy" theory that the USA was involved and NOT mohammad atta & Co. correct? I have heard this numerous times here on Digg as elsewhere.
Do you have proof that the hijackers were positively identified by passports "recovered" at Ground Zero, The Pentagon or the crash site in PA on September 11, 2001? - hipnerd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Poor Christian Irishmen were willing to blow up civilian targets like pubs and train stations during the struggles. Terrorism is the last resort of a population that feels it is oppressed by a vastly superior force. The phrase "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" is essentially true. The U.S. Revolutionary War was fought using guerrilla tactics that the British Army found barbaric and dishonorable, because the colonists lacked a political way to resolve their disputes with the Monarchy and they lacked a conventional army able to go toe-to-toe with the Redcoats.
It's always been this way, and it always will. - Vincep1974, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The root causes of terrorism.. JIhad
JIhad, I have two items. The first is a description of how the Muslims moved into Persia.. notice the similarities to the crime they commit in Europe today.. Then after that , I show how Islam in its core teaching obligates the Muslim to do this. It's a religious obligation and an eschatological requirement. Oh and let me already state what the responses are going to be.. 1 - Taking it out of context 2 - Using a bad translation 3 - English doesnt have the same meaning as Arabic 4 - (My favorite) Billy did it too!!! (Comparing to other religions... this tactic is designed to prevent Islam from being discussed)
1 - Persian Conquest Example
"More Moslems came, and soon a small mosque was built, which attracted yet others. As long as Zoroastrians remained in the majority, their lives were tolerable; but once the Moslems became the more numerous, a petty but pervasive harassment was apt to develop. This was partly verbal, with taunts about fire-worship, and comments on how few Zoroastrians there were in the world, and how many Moslems, who must therefore posses the truth; and also on how many material advantages lay with Islam. The harassment was often also physical; boys fought, and gangs of youth waylaid and bullied individual Zoroastrians. They also diverted themselves by climbing into the local tower of silence and desecrating it, and they might even break into the fire-temple and seek to pollute or extinguish the sacred flame. Those with criminal leanings found too that a religious minority provided tempting opportunities for theft, pilfering from the open fields, and sometimes rape and arson. Those Zoroastrians who resisted all these pressures often preferred therefore in the end to sell out and move to some other place where their co-religionists were still relatively numerous, and they could live at peace; and so another village was lot to the old faith."
Boyce, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism, pp. 7-8;
2 - Islam 101
Shortly before Muhammad fled the hostility of Mecca, a new batch of Muslim converts pledged their loyalty to him on a hill outside Mecca called Aqaba. That Muhammad's nascent religion underwent a significant change at this point is plain. The scholarly Ishaq clearly intends to impress on his (Muslim) readers that, while in its early years, Islam was a relatively tolerant creed that would "endure insult and forgive the ignorant," Allah soon required Muslims "to war against all and sundry for God and his Apostle." The Islamic calendar testifies to the paramouncy of the Hijra by setting year one from the date of its occurrence. The year of the Hijra, 622 AD, is considered more significant than the year of Muhammad's birth or death or that of the first Quranic revelation because Islam is first and foremost a political-military enterprise. It was only when Muhammad left Mecca with his paramilitary band that Islam achieved its proper political-military articulation. The years of the Islamic calendar (which employs lunar months) are designated in English "AH" or "After Hijra."
Muhammad's greatest victory came in 632 AD, ten years after he and his followers had been forced to flee to Medina. In that year, he assembled a force of some ten thousand Muslims and allied tribes and descended on Mecca. "The Apostle had instructed his commanders when they entered Mecca only to fight those who resisted them, except a small number who were to be killed even if they were found beneath the curtains of the Kaba." (Sira, p550)
Volume 3, Book 29, Number 72;
Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah's Apostle entered Mecca in the year of its Conquest wearing an Arabian helmet on his head and when the Prophet took it off, a person came and said, "Ibn Khatal is holding the covering of the Kaba (taking refuge in the Kaba)." The Prophet said, "Kill him."
Following the conquest of Mecca, Muhammad outlined the future of his religion.
Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177;
Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour {of the Last Judgment} will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."
Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24;
Narrated Ibn Umar: Allah's Apostle said: "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah."
It is from such warlike pronouncements as these that Islamic scholarship divides the world into dar al-Islam (the House of Islam, i.e., those nations who have submitted to Allah) and dar al-harb (the House of War, i.e., those who have not). It is this dispensation that the world lived under in Muhammad's time and that it lives under today. Then as now, Islam's message to the unbelieving world is the same: submit or be conquered. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@ dboylon: "American's still think people blow themselves up because they "hate our freedoms".
And anyone else with common sense that studied islam. Instead of blaming the USA for all the worlds' troubles, you should read up on the death cult that is islam.
BTW, my grandfather says your welcome for the fact that you are typing in English expressing your views without fear of imprisonment or death... - Detritus, on 10/12/2007, -12/+16This is total misdirection. The "poverty myth" is that if you are poor and oppressed your only recourse is drastic actions. Poor being relative here; if you do not have the funds to arm yourself as well as your oppressor you are poor. The same exact sort of disparity can be found in Anglo-Terrorism such as the IRA vs. Great Britain and American Revolutionaries vs. United Kingdom. In both of these conflicts the oppressed could not meet their oppressor in a stand-up fight so they relied on unconventional and (at the time) reprehensibly uncivilized methods.
You could argue that both the IRA and the American Revolutionaries did not stoop to beheadings or some other specific action which you, yourself, find objectionable... but then you'd be playing a tangential game. At the end of the day we all find many of the things that happen in war objectionable.
So while we are comfortably sitting behind our computer screens; let us not also seek comfort by telling ourselves lies about the nature of our opposition with this slight-of-hand. - heffae, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka are one of the largest terrorist groups in the world and I don't believe they have a religious agenda. The IRA was a rather large group and they are Catholic. I don't think Muslims necessarily make up a disproportionate % of world wide terrorists.
Now I can understand why it would look like Muslims make up the only major groups of terrorists from a USA perspective. If you look at the number of makeup of terrorist groups opposed to the USA and Israel you are going to come up with a list that includes mostly radical-Islamic groups. Just like if you asked some one in Sri Lanka I would guess they would tell you most terrorists are Tamil's - iceperson, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6"The people living there have absolutely zero say in their governments policies, and they can't stand the U.S. "
Who else thinks that's just funny as *****? Their government ***** them over so they hate the US? That makes about as much sence as if the colonies decided that because they didn't like British rule they were going to attack France. - lwgoodman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Link to orginal article by Alberto Abadie
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~aabadie/povterr.pdf - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Darksheit:
>I wonder how the death tolls compare under Sadam and under Bush,
under which regime there are more innocent civilians being killed...
They did find a few thousand in mass graves from the early Saddam regime. They haven't found a lot from later on in his regime.
Estimates from Bush himself about how many civilians were killed was "about 30,000 or so" while a Lancet study estimates as many as 600,000 -- estimated from interviews and sampling of which the vast majority of interviewees produced death certificates. It's safe to say that the deaths just so far are in the hundreds of thousands of civilians. - Yrlec, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Well of course the terrorists who were behind 9/11 weren't poor. By definition, they had to afford the plane tickets...
- pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Or Kari...
- Flamingmoth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Actually, there were suicide bombers in Iraq pre-US invasion. Ansar al-Islam [Partisans of Islam] was the first group to plan, arm and dispatch suicide bombers in Iraq during its battle with other Kurdish factions in 2001. Active and deadly. How many of these attacks were documented is unclear because the factions are not big on record keeping. Ansar al-Islam moved its operations to Mosul after it was driven out of a mountainous and remote area of northern Iraq by US forces post-invasion. They are still active and deadly as we all know.
- blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Some rich ppl though could get so bored of abundance that they would search some motivation in some kind of fight, which could be expressed through terrorism. As already mentionned upthere Osama Ben Laden is/was from a filthy rich family.
- foopirata, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@dboylon
Reporters Sans Frontiers article on Saddam and sons control of the media: "The Iraqi media: 25 years of relentless repression
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his son Uday have turned what was once one of the most vibrant presses in the Middle East into an instrument of propaganda." http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=5008
The gas massacre in Halabja - http://www.kdp.pp.se/old/chemical.html
The origins (and subsequent battles) between the Sunni and the Shia (dating to 750 CE): http://www.islamfortoday.com/shia.htm - Ibanezfoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5This is not a blog. And thanks for pretending to know about terrorists. Some random guy in the comment section on Digg knows the "truth" about terrorism. Hell why don't people just come ask you next time?
- dboylon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Vietnamese communists and the Tamal Tiger marxist group started the modern suicide bombing tactics. It is about power. A motivated weaker opponent will go to extrodinary lengths to strike back at what is perceived their oppressor.
- Mullinator, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I do agree that poverty can result in terrorism, however terrorism from poverty usually results in terrorist acts against ones own society and own nation. Not against foreigners like the terrorism we are talking about here.
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