A short reminder. The eleven “frustrated and poor” guys who blew the World Trade Center up, actually came from upper middle class families. They were well off and well educated. Dave, it’s been tried right after the Oslo agreements, for years, and it failed. Secondly, you are not crazy at all. You have a very poor understanding of the culture of Jihad.
By the way, the US lives next door to a relatively (if not absolutely) poor country. A wall is built between the two countries. I haven’t seen Mexican throwing rockets into Texas and California. Let me assume though, that such an act will not be welcome in the US by more investments in the neighboring country. It will be welcome with force.
Theories of how to fight terrorism work wonderful when it comes to someone else’s terrorists. Your terrorist is always dealt with other methods. And no, I’m not crazy either. I may have been when I loudly supported the one-sided withdrawal of Israel from Gaza,
Using the 911 attackers as an example probably proves my point really well. Poor people could not have pulled it off, and this is why there have been so few 911-style attacks in the US. Prosperity tends to neutralize unrest better than anything.
Actually I don’t buy economic determinism, as I blogged about in http://davestewart.livejournal.com/15650.html back in 2006. There is a deeper reality at work in the world which gets closer to my philisophical bent. In this case, it’s hard to see people invested in the things of their world throwing bombs.
This is why Mexico is such an interesting case – the poverty is real though it is mitigated by a relatively liberal policy by the US regarding immigrants. My small time spent in Mexico (Yucatan and Mexico City) shows that they are richer as a nation than the richest part of Palistine. But the poorest people that I have spoken with are not unhappy – they are some of the happiest people I know. And this gets aware from the economic piece to the spiritual nature of people.