Quote from cdbern:
If the reason was purely religious, one would expect Muslims worldwide to be actively engaged in terrorism. But they aren't. Therefore one has to logically conclude that an outside element is contributing to this.
Middle eastern cultures so not place the same value on life as we do. They very much hold to the "an eye for an eye" mindset.
So, my contention is that its POSSIBLE that suppression, lack of opportunity etc, is the contributing element behind young muslims joining the likes of Bin Laden. Is there any US meddling that can be seen as a POSSIBLE trigger?
The IRA movement certainly wasn't religious.
It is not about poverty. We don't have people from Malawi or Bhutan or Cuba launching terrorist attacks on the west.
Most terrorism (as opposed to gangsterism) is driven by intractable political conflict. Usually this is about land claims, or ethnicity/religion ("blood and belonging"). The NI conflict was about age-old disputes arising from British rule over Ireland, with those disputes having aligned along religious/sectarian lines. The Israel/Palestine conflict is very similar. How do you settle such a conflict when two groups have competing claims for the same territory?
In the case of the Middle East, Bin Laden has been quite clear about his motives, and they are shared by most radical muslim terrorists:
i) they object to US support for Israel and the policy in the occupied territories
ii) they object to the US stationing its forces in holy lands of the Middle East
In both cases they feel wronged - I imagine most Americans would not appreciate having Saudi Arabian military bases on US soil. Equally, there would be significant conflict if native Americans demanded that descendants of the original white settlers packed up and went back home to Europe.
Now that is obviously a one-sided view, but it is a strongly held one on the Muslim side - even amongst moderates. That is the "root cause", not poverty. We don't get attacked by Bhutan or Malawi because they do not feel that we have occupied their territories or supported someone they consider an enemy.
The question then is can this conflict be resolved? The options are to either compromise to try to address the causes of hostility, or to deter terrorism using carrot and stick approaches. Compromise should only be done where it is morally acceptable. When core values are at stake, conflict is the only possible outcome. So although there is scope for minor compromise in the Middle East (bases could be stationed in less sensitive countries, US could persuade Israel to compromise somewhat in the occupied territories), there are intractable disagreements over core beliefs that simply cannot be resolved.
Clearly it would not be acceptable to US values to abandon Israel - it is the only democracy in the region, and by far the freest society, so it deserves support on those grounds. However, some kind of palestine settlement could go a long way to defusing tensions. Equally, stationing troops in the Middle East is thought necessary due to US strategic interests - support for Israel, regional stability, and oil. Compromise only makes sense if you think neither of those interests is important (which is why the left is so keen on compromise in this case).
Overall I think the radical Muslims are onto a loser, because the US is far more powerful and is simply not prepared to compromise those interests for a bunch of terrorists. If they pursued peaceful negotiation and protest, they may have got somewhere. But thanks to Bin Laden they are now f*cked.