BigBallinStalin wrote:Why do certain people engage in terrorism? And what are the justifications for certain terrorist organizations?
Exporting Western education and western ideals, which may be incompatible, would probably fail if the essential problems are not addressed. I don't think education would provide the lasting solution because even in the US, there are many uneducated who aren't joining terrorist groups and fighting a war against the nation.
Opportunity cost matters. Americans, even at the bottom, have a lot to lose, yet many people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc, do not. They're fighting military occupants, which was a good enough cause for the American Revolution. Others fight for their family's welfare, because it pays well to be a suicide bomber. Others fight and support such endeavors for reasons which were taught in schools--much like the US schools and society's way of supporting the "empire spirit" or "promoting nationalist pride."
Normal people resort to terrorism for one basic reason.. they feel they have no other option. However, there is another class always alive and well.. those who are so greedy they just don't care what the impact of what they do is. If those people resort to bombs, knives, etc they are considered criminals. If those people use attorneys and accountants, rhetoric tinged with disdain for any "beneath them".. then somehow they are not.
Education works. Chances for some sort of opportunity works even better, but usually that is why education is so important.
And, if you want to know the power of education.. consider that the reason groups ranging from Hammas to Al Q-aida to the Tahliban all began with educating the very poorest, the most desperate. In the case of some, boys were apparently kidnapped.
I specifically did NOT endorse "westernization". I said "moderate", respectful of Islam, etc.
The rest of what you write is your ideology and your attempt to translate it into something sensible.
Give someone educatioin, real education.. not the stupid "wave the flag and all will be OK" that some pretend is education... and suddenly those other things tend to work themselves out.BigBallinStalin wrote: Now, some of you jump, and say, "OMG, BBS, you just made our point for us! If it works here, let's export it there!" Nay, I say:
Education alone isn't the issue. A country and its people need a healthy economy in order to increase one's opportunity costs. If you make good enough money and the state and/or your community provide you with what you need, then you'd be less encourage to forego those benefits. These "problem-countries" need not only education, but also infrastructure, technology, security, legitimate courts, a non-predatory state, and other resources required to exploit more resources, provide jobs, provide opportunities, basic needs, and all that crap that individuals within developed countries find dear.
We're not talking esoteric PhDs here. Its reading, basic math, how to fix things and grow things, along with yes, ideas. However, real ideas and critical thinking, not what you seem to think is a liberal education.BigBallinStalin wrote:But how does one cause that? Shall Western institutions and liberal democracies by exported by gunpoint? I'm pretty sure we agree that it shouldn't be done that way. So, shall "education" alone be exported? And then what? There's no jobs there for higher education, and the problem of security and the problem of corrupt government still remains.
BigBallinStalin wrote:tl;dr Exporting education is pointless if there's no opportunity to use with the education. Healthier economies, and improving the welfare of people, begins with stability. Predatory states won't provide that, and the historical record from the 1960s to the 1990s (and probably even today) has shown that foreign intervention fails to promote this much needed stability.
So speaks someone who already has an education and who obviously has little idea of what lacking one really and truly means.