POVERTY DOES NOT DRIVE TERRORISM

The Madrassa Myth - Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey
Like the view that poverty drives terrorism - a notion that countless studies have debunked - the idea that madrassas are incubating the next generation of terrorists offers the soothing illusion that desperate, ignorant automatons are attacking us rather than college graduates, as is often the case. Examining the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners, we found that a majority were college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering. The 1993 World Trade Center attack involved 12 men, all of whom had a college education. The 9/11 pilots, as well as the secondary planners, all attended Western universities. Only 9 of the 75 had attended madrassas, and all played a role in one attack - the Bali bombing - while 5 college-educated "masterminds" helped shape the Bali plot. (New York Times)