Because you couldn’t be sure to take out both John Denver and Coors Brewing, which makes a nuclear attack extravagant.
The best information about terrorism and it’s roots comes from Marc Sageman. I heard him speak years ago about his “halal” theory of terrorism and his “bunch of guys” theory that explained how jihadists become that way through social pressures in the small groups they belong to.
His theories seem to be correct as evidenced by events since.
The making of an Al Qaeda Operative is a neat summary of his ideas.
The Foreign Policy Research Institute has lots of data on terrorism including a downloadable database.
It’s an interesting theory, but riddle me this: Everywhere in the world, there are disaffected young men - not just in Muslim countries. What is special about Muslim areas that so many of these men become radical terrorist types?
For the same reasonm that disaffectred young men for the first 80 years of the 20th century ran out and joined communist movements: the movement (communism or Fundametalist Islam) portrays itself as the direct opponent of the powers that are perceived to be the cause of the disaffection.
Terrorist in the Muslim world - reward to their family - their cause - headlines - joyous afterlife.
Western Disaffected Young men - murder/suicide in elementary schools, high schools, shopping malls - revenge on their family/society for not tending to their needs, headlines (going out with a bang).
Our western “product” may be an individual or small group without a mainstream cause to champion but they do have a “Columbine” collective. I wouldn’t call it a religion but it does have some cult characteristics.
Our western terrorists tend to be intelligent and middle class and up economically. Another similiarity to the Muslim terrorists.
I do not pretend to understand either group’s mindset.
Could it be as simple as sexual repression? The way they try to keep it in a box in the dark and deny that it is part of their humaity is bound to fuck them up.
I agree that it’s common for disaffected youths to join radical political movements. I suppose the problem with Islamic extremism (as opposed to things like communism or environmental extremism) is that Islamic extremism seems to heavily endorse terroristic tactics such as airplane hijacking, suicide bombing, and the like. (Not to imply that other movements are without their problems, of course.)
First off, you’re assuming he’d tell us to go screw, which is by no means a given. Second of all, how’s your scenario different from today, when we have nominal influence, but refuse to use it?
Zooming out even more, I think this is one fundimental attitudes that drive the jihadis, the other being that many Middle-Eastern and central asian muslim countries still have a tribal social order. Islamic societies are religious and have spent a lot of time rejecting secular Western culture until recently. For at least 50 years, there has been a struggle within the muslim world to attempt to keep up with the West without adopting Western culture. As with any culture, there is a spectrum of muslims who are able to work in Western values and customs while staying true to their beliefs and home culture, while other muslims reject, sometimes violently, any secular practices or ideas. Western societies are also more uniform than the tribal societies in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and elsewhere. Someone coming out of those societies into the secular US would be in for a shock. These two fundimental differences are not by themselves direct motivation for the jihadis, but I think serves to frame their reasons for attacking Western targets.
Vlad/Igor
Obviously it was a political statement. Why not make the name of your retarded boy Ahmed or something? I don’t think that’s quite the example you were looking for. Anyone who starts their book with “Muhammed was an idiot.”, has to know the consequences of his actions.