Anti-americans everywhere

[Murthy Yenamandra]

calbert at hslboxmaster.com writes:
> [someone else:]
> > Not a bit of it. The Middle East is full of terror groups and full,
> > too, of poverty, suffering and political repression. To say the two
> > are unconnected is fanciful. Downtrodden, uneducated Arab boys on the
> > street are far more likely than their comfortable, educated
> > counterparts to see suicide bombers as warrior heroes and role models.
> 
> Does this jibe with the biography, as we are beginning to learn of it, 
> of Mohammed Atta? [...]
> Is it really likely that he is carrying "water" for the down trodden - or 
> is it more likely that he is a "general" in a ideological war?

Not either/or, but probably both.  When the "warriors" carry out their
deeds in the name of their weaker, downtrodden brotheren, the fact that
they themselves are not downtrodden doesn't detract from the ardor, but
only makes it seem imperative that they, who can, act on behalf of those
who can't. And the ideology provides a vision for the ideal world where
there are no downtrodden.

Even though the attacks were made in the name of ideology and on behalf
of the politically repressed, poverty is important in providing the
ideological warriors with a broad base of sympathy if not support.

Murthy

-- 
Murthy Yenamandra                  mailto:yenamand at cs.umn.edu
"I strive to be brief, but I become obscure." - Horace