 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
|
| I N S I G H T -------- Residue in Beirut Hania Mourtada Testing Americana James Grime Chinese Intentions Shimpei Ara Abandoning Ideology Antonio Fabrizio After Mumbai Blasts Charlie Duerr Sex And Soccer Phillip Wellman An Ally Of Sorts? Molly Nixon Forgetting Africa Krzys Wasilewski |
Root cause: Bin Laden was not using his millions to build irrigation canals
By Alex Epstein
Posted: Oct 10, 2006
Five years after September 11, with Islamic terrorism flourishing while America’s military efforts are
floundering, many recognize that we still have not identified -- and dealt with -- the root cause of the
terrorist threat.
The most popular theory about the root cause of terrorism is that terrorism is caused by poverty. The
United Nations and our European and Arab “allies” repeatedly tell us to minimize our military
operations and instead dole out more foreign aid to poor countries -- to put down our guns and pick up
our checkbook. Only by fighting poverty, the refrain goes, can we address the root cause of terrorism.
The pernicious idea that poverty causes terrorism has been a popular claim since the attacks of Sept.
11. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has repeatedly asked wealthy nations to double their foreign
aid, naming as a cause of terrorism “that far too many people are condemned to lives of extreme
poverty and degradation.”
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell agrees: “We have to put hope back in the hearts of people. We
have to show people who might move in the direction of terrorism that there is a better way.”
Businessman Ted Turner also concurs: “The reason that the World Trade Center got hit is because
there are a lot of people living in abject poverty out there who don’t have any hope for a better life."
Indeed, the argument that poverty causes terrorism has been central to America’s botched war in Iraq --
which has focused, not on quickly ending any threat the country posed and moving on to other crucial
targets, but on bringing the good life to the Iraqi people.
Eliminating the root of terrorism is indeed a valid goal -- but properly targeted military action, not
welfare handouts, is the means of doing so.
Terrorism is not caused by poverty. The terrorists of Sept. 11 did not attack America in order to make
the Middle East richer. To the contrary, their stated goal was to repel any penetration of the prosperous
culture of the industrialized “infidels” into their world. The wealthy Osama bin Laden was not using his
millions to build electric power plants or irrigation canals. If he and his terrorist minions wanted
prosperity, they would seek to emulate the United States -- not to destroy it.
More fundamental, poverty as such cannot determine anyone’s code of morality. It is the ideas that
individuals choose to adopt which make them pursue certain goals and values. A desire to destroy
wealth and to slaughter innocent, productive human beings cannot be explained by a lack of money or
a poor quality of life -- only by anti-wealth, anti-life ideas. These terrorists are motivated by the ideology
of Islamic Fundamentalism.
This other-worldly, authoritarian doctrine views America’s freedom, prosperity, and pursuit of worldly
pleasures as the height of depravity. Its adherents resent America’s success and the appeal our
culture has to many Middle Eastern youths. To the fundamentalists, Americans are “infidels” who
should be killed. As a former Taleban official said, “The Americans are fighting so they can live and
enjoy the material things in life. But we are fighting so we can die in the cause of God.”
The terrorists hate us because of their ideology -- a fact that filling up the coffers of Third World
governments will do nothing to change. What, then, can our government do? It cannot directly eradicate
the deepest, philosophical roots of terrorism; but by using military force, it can eliminate the only “root
cause” relevant in a political context: state sponsorship of terrorism. The fundamentalists’ hostility
toward America can translate into international terrorism only via the governments that employ, finance,
train, and provide refuge to terrorist networks. Such assistance is the cause of the terrorist threat -- and
America has the military might to remove that cause.
It is precisely in the name of fighting terrorism at its root that America must extend its fist, not its hand.
Whatever other areas of the world may require U.S. troops to stop terrorist operations, we must above
all go after the single main source of the threat -- Iran. This theocratic nation is both the birthplace of
the Islamic Fundamentalist revolution and, as a consequence, a leading sponsor of terrorism.
Removing that government from power would be a potent blow against Islamic terrorism.
It would destroy the political embodiment of the terrorists’ cause. It would declare America’s
intolerance of support for terrorists. It would be an unequivocal lesson, showing what will happen to
other countries if they fail to crack down on terrorists within their borders. And it would acknowledge the
fact that dropping bombs, not food packages, is the only way for our government to attack terrorism at
its root.
### ### ###
Alex Epstein is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California.
By Alex Epstein
Posted: Oct 10, 2006
Five years after September 11, with Islamic terrorism flourishing while America’s military efforts are
floundering, many recognize that we still have not identified -- and dealt with -- the root cause of the
terrorist threat.
The most popular theory about the root cause of terrorism is that terrorism is caused by poverty. The
United Nations and our European and Arab “allies” repeatedly tell us to minimize our military
operations and instead dole out more foreign aid to poor countries -- to put down our guns and pick up
our checkbook. Only by fighting poverty, the refrain goes, can we address the root cause of terrorism.
The pernicious idea that poverty causes terrorism has been a popular claim since the attacks of Sept.
11. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has repeatedly asked wealthy nations to double their foreign
aid, naming as a cause of terrorism “that far too many people are condemned to lives of extreme
poverty and degradation.”
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell agrees: “We have to put hope back in the hearts of people. We
have to show people who might move in the direction of terrorism that there is a better way.”
Businessman Ted Turner also concurs: “The reason that the World Trade Center got hit is because
there are a lot of people living in abject poverty out there who don’t have any hope for a better life."
Indeed, the argument that poverty causes terrorism has been central to America’s botched war in Iraq --
which has focused, not on quickly ending any threat the country posed and moving on to other crucial
targets, but on bringing the good life to the Iraqi people.
Eliminating the root of terrorism is indeed a valid goal -- but properly targeted military action, not
welfare handouts, is the means of doing so.
Terrorism is not caused by poverty. The terrorists of Sept. 11 did not attack America in order to make
the Middle East richer. To the contrary, their stated goal was to repel any penetration of the prosperous
culture of the industrialized “infidels” into their world. The wealthy Osama bin Laden was not using his
millions to build electric power plants or irrigation canals. If he and his terrorist minions wanted
prosperity, they would seek to emulate the United States -- not to destroy it.
More fundamental, poverty as such cannot determine anyone’s code of morality. It is the ideas that
individuals choose to adopt which make them pursue certain goals and values. A desire to destroy
wealth and to slaughter innocent, productive human beings cannot be explained by a lack of money or
a poor quality of life -- only by anti-wealth, anti-life ideas. These terrorists are motivated by the ideology
of Islamic Fundamentalism.
This other-worldly, authoritarian doctrine views America’s freedom, prosperity, and pursuit of worldly
pleasures as the height of depravity. Its adherents resent America’s success and the appeal our
culture has to many Middle Eastern youths. To the fundamentalists, Americans are “infidels” who
should be killed. As a former Taleban official said, “The Americans are fighting so they can live and
enjoy the material things in life. But we are fighting so we can die in the cause of God.”
The terrorists hate us because of their ideology -- a fact that filling up the coffers of Third World
governments will do nothing to change. What, then, can our government do? It cannot directly eradicate
the deepest, philosophical roots of terrorism; but by using military force, it can eliminate the only “root
cause” relevant in a political context: state sponsorship of terrorism. The fundamentalists’ hostility
toward America can translate into international terrorism only via the governments that employ, finance,
train, and provide refuge to terrorist networks. Such assistance is the cause of the terrorist threat -- and
America has the military might to remove that cause.
It is precisely in the name of fighting terrorism at its root that America must extend its fist, not its hand.
Whatever other areas of the world may require U.S. troops to stop terrorist operations, we must above
all go after the single main source of the threat -- Iran. This theocratic nation is both the birthplace of
the Islamic Fundamentalist revolution and, as a consequence, a leading sponsor of terrorism.
Removing that government from power would be a potent blow against Islamic terrorism.
It would destroy the political embodiment of the terrorists’ cause. It would declare America’s
intolerance of support for terrorists. It would be an unequivocal lesson, showing what will happen to
other countries if they fail to crack down on terrorists within their borders. And it would acknowledge the
fact that dropping bombs, not food packages, is the only way for our government to attack terrorism at
its root.
### ### ###
Alex Epstein is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California.
| (c) 2006 New Criterion Foundation, London |
| Security. Ideologies. Multiculturalism. |