Terrorism and Poverty

I thought I'd briefly follow up to this story I posted yesterday about the erroneous theory that the current economic crisis will result in more "racism", and because we are "racist" towards some unidentified group, that will cause more terrorism.

I must admit that yesterday I was a little slow and didn't quite get the point of the story, so today I want to expand on this premise slightly.

The idea that terrorism is somehow linked to poverty and desperation has been debunked numerous times. Study after study has shown that jihadists are generally better educated and more well-off than their peers - with multi-millionaire Osama bin Laden being the most obvious example. Those who attacked Glasgow airport last year, and plotted other attacks, were doctors and lawyers.

For more information, here is one such study exposing this myth. Here is another. And here is a detailed round-up of the evidence by Daniel Pipes.