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To: schrodingers_cat who wrote (131462)9/19/2001 10:18:46 AM
From: Oeconomicus  Read Replies (1) of 164684
 
OT: I don't think bin Laden ever went hungry.

Again, you misunderstood. I was talking about the Afghan people who live in fear of the Taliban, who send their sons to become Talib so at least they know they will be fed. I was not talking about bin Laden or his agents and recruits.

Why do educated, middle and upper class young men join up with bin Laden and commit mass murder and suicide at his command? I don't know.

But one could ask the same thing about Japanese youth and the doomsday cult that released nerve gas in Tokyo subways. And what about US cults that have committed mass suicide or mass murder? Weren't Charles Manson's followers raised in ordinary American families? Don't their middle and upper class parents also say "we never saw any indication" or "we gave her everything she wanted - it can't be true".

To some degree, the most extreme of these groups seem to operate like cults rather than paramilitary groups motivated by political objectives. OTOH, some like the Taliban operate like many totalitarian regimes in history. The motivation of the average Agfhan boy in joining the Taliban is probably not any different from the average German boy joining the Nazi Youth in the 1930's.

What drives a middle class Lebanese twenty-something who wanted to fly since he was five to realize that dream in one suicidal flight into the WTC? We may never know.

Bob
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