Comments on: 9/11 in Textbooks http://donklephant.com/2005/09/12/911-in-textbooks/ Big Teeth. Huge Ass. Surprisingly Reasonable. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:03:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Callimachus http://donklephant.com/2005/09/12/911-in-textbooks/comment-page-1/#comment-2137 Callimachus Mon, 12 Sep 2005 22:04:33 +0000 http://donklephant.com/?p=837#comment-2137 Alan, that might be a better wording. Or it might not. You'd have to go into the writings and psychological profiles of the 19 killers to be able to say whether that was so or not. I have not done so, but my impression of at least Atta and a few others was that they were not particularly concerned with the plight of the poor in the Muslim lands, nor were they terribly interested in promoting democracy there, unless it could serve as a means to the end of reconstructing a caliphate. Other than those paths, it's still pretty shaky to connect Muslim poverty with the "disaffection" of the 9/11 terrorists. Alan, that might be a better wording. Or it might not. You’d have to go into the writings and psychological profiles of the 19 killers to be able to say whether that was so or not. I have not done so, but my impression of at least Atta and a few others was that they were not particularly concerned with the plight of the poor in the Muslim lands, nor were they terribly interested in promoting democracy there, unless it could serve as a means to the end of reconstructing a caliphate. Other than those paths, it’s still pretty shaky to connect Muslim poverty with the “disaffection” of the 9/11 terrorists.

]]> By: Alan http://donklephant.com/2005/09/12/911-in-textbooks/comment-page-1/#comment-2136 Alan Mon, 12 Sep 2005 21:59:42 +0000 http://donklephant.com/?p=837#comment-2136 Is it possible that high levels of poverty ignored by undemocratic and corrupt governments provided bin Laden a pool of disaffected, young, educated, middle-class Muslims who saw the United States as the evil source of the misery of their co-religionists? By making minor changes to Hartmann's text, I think I have something closer to the truth. My comment is not an attempt to justify the unjustifiable. The supporters of bin Laden are murderous fanatics but, in general, they are not actually ravingly insane. In order to defeat them, one small but useful part of our strategy might be to know what motivates them and how they are recruited. Is it possible that high levels of poverty ignored by undemocratic and corrupt governments provided bin Laden a pool of disaffected, young, educated, middle-class Muslims who saw the United States as the evil source of the misery of their co-religionists?

By making minor changes to Hartmann’s text, I think I have something closer to the truth.

My comment is not an attempt to justify the unjustifiable. The supporters of bin Laden are murderous fanatics but, in general, they are not actually ravingly insane. In order to defeat them, one small but useful part of our strategy might be to know what motivates them and how they are recruited.

]]> By: Karl Gallagher http://donklephant.com/2005/09/12/911-in-textbooks/comment-page-1/#comment-2135 Karl Gallagher Mon, 12 Sep 2005 21:38:02 +0000 http://donklephant.com/?p=837#comment-2135 I'll file this under "yet another argument for home-schooling." I’ll file this under “yet another argument for home-schooling.”

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