This will come as a surprise to those — and they are legion — who assume that poverty causes terrorism. In reality, that claim is just a pretext for Western nations to write more checks to governments of Muslim countries. It’s demonstrably false. The New York Times reported that “not long after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001…Alan B. Krueger, the Princeton economist, tested the widespread assumption that poverty was a key factor in the making of a terrorist. Mr. Krueger’s analysis of economic figures, polls, and data on suicide bombers and hate groups found no link between economic distress and terrorism.”
CNS News noted in September 2013 that “according to a Rand Corporation report on counterterrorism, prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2009, ‘Terrorists are not particularly impoverished, uneducated, or afflicted by mental disease. Demographically, their most important characteristic is normalcy (within their environment). Terrorist leaders actually tend to come from relatively privileged backgrounds.’ One of the authors of the RAND report, Darcy Noricks, also found that according to a number of academic studies, ‘Terrorists turn out to be more rather than less educated than the general population.’”
Yet the analysis that poverty causes terrorism has been applied and reapplied and reapplied again.
“Indian doctor detonated car bomb in deadly attack targeting jail in East of Afghanistan,” Khaama Press, August 5, 2020 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
An Indian doctor detonated a Vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) in the initial phase of a deadly attack on a jail in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, it has been reported.
According to local media reports emerging from India, a medical graduate, hailing originally from Malayali of Kerala of India, detonated a car bomb close to the provincial jail in Jalalabad city, the provincial capital of India.
Identified as Ijaz, who had recently graduated from medical faculty in China, the suicide bomber detonated the car bomb to allow the other assailants storm the jail….
CogitoErgoSum says
That’s another way of getting out of paying off your student loans too. Maybe making people poor by putting them in debt by giving them loans to go to college creates suicide bombers. Oh wait, the doctor graduated from somewhere in China. Maybe Marxism creates terrorists. That’s one more thing I’m going to have to think about … tomorrow.
Phil Copson says
Another one to think about – (though too late for Ijaz-the-dim-jihadi, happily…) – is why it didn’t occur to him to get out of the car BEFORE setting it off….. ?
toomanyhobbies says
so much for the Hippocratic oath…
gravenimage says
Yep.
“I swore it, but I lied”…
curious says
Among Muslims, education and wealth INCREASE the probability of becoming involved in terrorism:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140319085541.htm
That makes sense. Education and wealth help to enable people to do what is in them to do. Islam is a totalitarian doctrine that commands Muslims to follow the example of the dead charlatan Mohamad, a warlord who was made victorious through terror.
Robert Spencer is absolutely correct that false claims of poverty driving terrorism are “just a pretext for Western nations to write more checks to governments of Muslim countries.” These payments are another way in which westerners are deceived into paying jizya to Muslims. “War is deceit.”
gravenimage says
This is true, curious.
Beneath the Veil of Consciousness says
He said the first operation he performed was a blast!
Wellington says
Ideology over all other factors causes terrorism. The extent of education isn’t even secondary or tertiary (except to make a more efficient terrorist). Nor is poverty.
Ideology is king.
And this is why Islam, alone among the major religions, produces the VAST majority of religious terrorists. In the 99% range or thereabouts. All non-Muslim apologists for Islam should grasp this—but, with few exceptions, they won’t. Ah yes, permanent foolish-mode is a terrible thing.
Walter Sieruk says
That Muslim doctor who is also a bomb detonating jihadist is yet more proof that education for Muslims is not the answer as to how to stop Islamic terrorism.
The answer is Bible based Christian evangelism for Muslims is how to stop Islamic terrorism.
There’s a Christian site which replies the many claims made by the imams as well as the other apologists for Islam . It’s answering-islam.org
tim gallagher says
I guess this Muslim maggot doctor didn’t take that pesky old Hippocratic oath seriously, you know, all that noble stuff about not harming people.
sweetolbob says
He probably took the oath in a language that went … Ahhhh, Bibbeldy Babbeldy mah Dibbledy mah Nibbeldy Allagh ! P’tooie !
Phil Copson says
“I guess this Muslim maggot doctor didn’t take that pesky old Hippocratic oath seriously, you know, all that noble stuff about not harming people….”
———————————————————————
He wouldn’t see that as being a problem – in the islamists world-view, infidels aren’t people since they are “descended from apes and pigs” / the non-believer is never innocent since they are guilty of not believing / and threatening people with death isn’t compulsion, since they are free to choose whether to obey or to die.
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the comments, sweetolbob and Phil. As you say, Phil, we infidels aren’t seen as human by the supremacist Muslims. I wasn’t the least bit surprised, of course, by Muslim doctors or any other type of Muslim, carrying out a terrorist attack. It is what I expect from devout Muslims. It just popped into my head that it is certainly something that is in stark contrast to the Hippocratic oath.
curious says
If he had survived, he could have got a job at the Mayo Clinic:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/pakistani-doctor-arrested-minnesota-terrorism-charge-69697310
curious says
And, let us remember Al-Qaeda’s Ayman Al-Zawahiri:
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/ayman-al-zawahiri
gravenimage says
And this was not the first Jihadist at the Mayo Clinic, There was another one, an apologist for FGM.
There was a poster here, CGW, who started the campaign to get him fired:
“Mayo Clinic fires doctor who said female genital mutilation an “honor” for women”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/05/mayo-clinic-fires-doctor-who-said-female-genital-mutilation-is-an-honor-for-women
It’s good that both of these Jihadists were eventually fired–but that Jihadists wound up at one of America’s most prestigious clinics is of course *deeply* disturbing.
curious says
Thanks, @gravenimage, but I cannot find any confirmation that Mayo fired either of these jihadis.
To the contrary, Muhammad Masood MD said he was resigning shortly before going to the airport, where he was arrested. Mayo said he “was not employed by Mayo Clinic at the time of his arrest.” He had worked there two years, while plotting jihad. In a text to an informant, Masood said he hated “smiling at the passing kuffar just to not make them suspicios.” [sic]
Similarly, with regard to Hatem Elhagaly MD, Mayo said he “is no longer employed or caring for patients at Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea… Because this is a personnel issue, we cannot comment further on Dr. Elhagaly’s employment status.”
KSA sends many patients to Mayo and pays the bills.
gravenimage says
curious, neither of these Muslims left of their own accord. If they “resigned”, it was just giving them a more respectable out. Better if the Mayo Clinic made it known why they are gone–but their being gone is still the most important thing.
elee says
Don’t they do ANY character vetting for admission to ANY learned profession in these s***holes?
curious says
Yes, the W43 administration gave Afghanistan and Iraq expressly religious constitutions, faith-based government. If Ijaz had renounced Islam, Afghanistan would have prosecuted him for apostasy, and probably executed him. The Islamic “character test” required him to remain committed to Islam. He did that.
gravenimage says
Afghanistan: Muslim who detonated jihad suicide car bomb had recently graduated from medical school
…………………
But…but…poverty and ignorance!
Linde Barrera says
This is another sad but disgusting and demonic example of Muslim brain washing. The doctrine of medical doctors is that they are supposed to help heal their patients. (The doctrine for teachers is “Do no harm to any child whether physical, mental or emotional.”) Yet it appears that human behavior sometimes overrides these doctrines, making them null and void. I do not understand how this happens.
Sir Edward Artis says
This ain’t A GAME
WAKE UP and EDUCATE YOURSELVES.
WE ARE AT WAR WITH ISLAM, THE RADICAL ELEMENTS OF ISLAM
Giacomo Latta says
Well, for Ijaz and his coreligionists the old axiom applies: know thine enemy.
Let’s see, how does life work inside a human being?
OLD GUY says
As a Muslim he was probably an honor student based on his previous humanitarian and social work.
grandpahalfdime says
Another myth blown all to hell.
But we already had a great bit of proof here with the two lawyers who firebombed a police car, and almost the two officers who had just got out of it, during the “George Floyd Riots.”