Study after study has shown that jihadists are generally wealthier than their peers, and yet we constantly hear from the learned analysts that poverty causes terrorism, and that what we really need to do is build infrastructure in places like Afghanistan, and that will end the terrorism problem. Yet now we hear that Yemen is too poor to pursue jihad. Come on, guys, can’t you get your story straight?
“In poverty-struck Yemen, al-Qaida a low priority,” by Sarah El Deeb for Associated Press, December 22 (thanks to Ravi):
[…] More than 50 percent of Yemen’s children are malnourished, rivaling war zones like Sudan’s Darfur and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. That’s just one of many worrying statistics in Yemen.
Nearly half the population lives below the poverty line of $2 a day and doesn’t have access to proper sanitation. Less than a tenth of the roads are paved. Water is running out. Tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes by conflict, flooding into cities. The government is riddled with corruption, has little control outside the capital, and its main source of income — oil — could run dry in a decade.
As a result, al-Qaida is far down on a long list of worries for most Yemenis, even as the United States presses the government to step up its fight against the terror network’s affiliate here….