Maggie's Farm

Causes of Terrorism, Again

Maggie's has been over this ground several times. (I could bring the posts up if we could figure out how to do the permalinks.) This is just more evidence that Maggie's is always right. Our general view has been that terrorism is caused by terrorists - ordinary evil, destructive folks like the ones The Analyst discusses -  and this supports that. When will we quit trying to "understand" badness? Rotten sleazy people are a dime a dozen in this world. What's to understand?

What is worth understanding is goodness and selflessness and sacrifice and integrity. How does that kind of behavior appear in ugly apes like homo sapiens for whom the Law of the Jungle seems to come naturally?

"London's Sunday Times has reported on new research that reveals that the typical al-Qaeda recruit is a well-educated professional. He is likely to have been educated in the West and come from a wealthy family, according to forensic psychiatrist and researcher Marc Sageman, who examined the backgrounds of 500 al-Qaeda members."