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To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (125307)	7/15/2005 1:29:32 AM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Respond to of 793846

None of the suicide bombers — they ranged in age from 18 to 38 — conformed to the typical profile of the suicidal personality. During the worst of the Algerian civil war, many of the terrorists there were in fact well educated, which surprised people discussing it on French television on a number of occasions. However, the actual terrorist bombings in the Paris Metro in 1995 and 1998 while I lived in near Paris were carried out by losers from the housing projects in France, so there is at least some connection with what the "left" was saying. These housing project idiots were teleguided by well educated radical individuals though. Also interestingly, it took literally years for the French to get the British to finally extradite the planners and financers of the Paris Metro terrorist bombings. They dragged their feet interminably.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (125307)	7/15/2005 11:38:39 AM
From: D. Long	Respond to of 793846

Note to BBC: poverty and desperation, the Beeb's favorite all-purpose motivations for terror, weren't even on the list of motives I'm beginning to think the phenomenon may be a sort of Muslim version of middle-class youth angst, like the sort that drives middle American kids to become leftie radicals, or the kind of nihilist malaise that affects many middle American young males (and understood by Scorsese in Taxi Driver). First generation is dirt poor, second generation rises into the middle class, third generation guilt/angst looks back to the "purity" of the proletariat. There's also the phenomenon of the 3rd generation immigrant. First generation immigrates from mother country, second generation assimilates, third generation looks back and rediscovers its "roots". I don't think it's a coincidence that so many suicide bombers are middle class kids. Derek