Terrorism is definitely linked to the political freedom of the people. Politics is just a polite way of waging war. Instead of using guns, bombs, etc, to get your ideas across, political warfare is waged by ideas and words. Where people have no say in how their world is being run, they will resort to whatever tactics are available and necessary to make that happen, be it terrorism or money or whatever.

It would be logical to conclude that if the Islamic nations in question had a true democracy, where everyone participates, that would reduce terrorism coming out of the area. I don't think anyone would or could dispute that. The question of Iraq is if the people of the area see the brand of democracy that is being built is by, of and for the people. In the end, there will always be a group of people that do not believe in the form of government that is in place, and there will always be some amount of terrorism.

Russia is regressing into tyranny under Putin. The Iraqi government routinely tortures and murders suspects. People in Iraq who have been detained are turning up tortured and murdered. So while Iraq seems to be moving toward democracy, it is also moving away from it.

Osama bin Laden, may he rot in hell, has said several times what the reasons for his terrorism are: A. Military bases in the holy land of Saudi Arabia (since removed). B. Support for the Israelis, who commit ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians. C. U.S. support for tyrannical governments, including Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt and others. D. Now, more recently bin Laden urges jihad for the war in Iraq.

I'm not taking issue with all of the professors conclusions. Terrorism's roots very well may be political rather than economic. We need a blue ribbon panel to ask the question: Why are the terrorists doing this to us?

My thoughts on Saudi Arabia are as follows:

1. The Islamist monarchy has to go.
2. They WILL go soon after the U.S. withdraws support.
3. We don't want them to go before Iraq is stabilized and the regimes in Syria and Iran have fallen and been replaced by something better.
4. The best way to get rid of the Saudi regime would be if the people want the same freedom and democracy that is flowering in Iraq - and we make it known that we would be happy to help them achieve it if they get rid of their regime.
5. We can't topple every tyranny at once. These things take time. Even in World War 2, we focused on defeating Mussolini first, then Hitler, then Japan. And we worked with another tyrannical regime - Stalin's Soviet Union - to do it. And then we spent the next 45 years or so taking down the Soviet tyranny.
6. Toppling the Saudi regime at the wrong time would wreak havoc on the War on Terror as global oil prices would top $200 a barrel.
7. Not all of the Islamic tyrannies must be defeated militarily. Tyrannies often are brittle and crumble easily if pressure is applied in the right spot. Remember the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The repressive Saudi monarchy must - and will - fall. Eventually.

I'm not sure if poverty has ever been all that popular as an indicator of terrorism. If political freedom is the cure for terrorism how does that explain the lower levels in autocratic nations? Isn't that only looking at the half of the results? Isn't the assertion "highly autocratic regimes eventually collapse" somewhat meaningless as democratic regimes also tend to collapse over time?

I propose that social and political stability are what prevents terrorism. In other words Leo Strauss was full of it. A peaceful and democratic Iraq is a noble goal, but don't think our actions to date serve as a means to that end.

my question is, why is it "we" who has to rid the earth of tyranny? i know we have the largest military and protect other countries, but they could do more, a lot more. they hit london because they're an ally in the war on terror. so let's say france stays away, and they don't get hit. a condundrum indeed, but it's tiring being the world's police force.

I think this is asking the wrong question. Terrorism is just an *implementation* of hatred. But there are lots of ways to implement hatred. If you only focus on one implementation, you come to the wrong conclusion.

For example, the KKK and the Nazis both had a lot in common with Islamic terrorists. The Islamic terrorists are under the delusion that Americans are the root of their problems. The KKK was under the delusion that blacks were the root of their problems. The Nazis were under the delusion that the Jews were the root of their problems. Essentially, the three groups are the same --- they're all demonizers. But these three demonizers all implemented their hatred differently. The Nazis used concentration camps. The Islamicists use terrorism. The KKK used Jim Crow. But these are just different implementations. The groups are essentially the same.

I think all this study tells us is under what conditions is terrorism a convenient way to implement hatred.

I'd be much more interested in what conditions lead to demonization in the first place. It doesn't seem like freedom has much to do with it. The KKK existed in a pretty free country (at least, for whites). The germans were pretty free, prior to the Nazis. I even see demonization (of liberals) taking place right now in the US. Freedom doesn't seem to be an inoculant. It just seems to change the tactics.

You see demonization of liberals? I see demonization of conservative Christians by liberals.

Keep in mind that Abadie is studying domestic terrorism. So basically, what his study suggests is that when political groups have a chance of achieving their goals through the political process, they are less likely to resort to terrorism.

Does this have any relevance to international terrorism, which is the greatest threat to countries that already have a high level of freedom? Probably not. By extension, Abadie's results predict that groups would be less likely to engage in terrorist attacks on other countries if there were some sort of democratic process--a world government, or at least a strong UN--whereby they saw a chance of achieving their goals by peaceful means. But does anybody really see a chance of that happening?

Why does Abadie ignore the religious aspects of the problem? What if the problem is neither poverty nor freedom, but the religious belief in keeping the land holy by purifying it of unbelievers? This has been a powerful source of violence for centuries -- why ignore it now?

Robert Pape has written a book following a study of suicide bombers from 1994-2005. The book is titled Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.

Here are some of the studies conclusions:

* The data show that there is far less of a connection between suicide terrorism and religious fundamentalism than most people think
* What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks actually have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland
* Three general patterns in the data support these conclusions
1. First, nearly all suicide terrorist attacks - 301 of the 315 in the period I studied - took place as part of organized political or military campaigns
2. Second, democracies are uniquely vulnerable to suicide terrorists; America, France, India, Israel, Russia, Sri Lanka and Turkey have been the targets of almost every suicide attack of the past two decades
3. Third, suicide terrorist campaigns are directed toward a strategic objective: from Lebanon to Israel to Sri Lanka to Kashmir to Chechnya, the sponsors of every campaign - 18 organizations in all - are seeking to establish or maintain political self-determination
* Before Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, there was no Hezbollah suicide terrorist campaign against Israel; indeed, Hezbollah came into existence only after this event.
* Before the Sri Lankan military began moving into the Tamil homelands of the island in 1987, the Tamil Tigers did not use suicide attacks
* Before the huge increase in Jewish settlers on the West Bank in the 1980's, Palestinian groups did not use suicide terrorism
* There had never been a documented suicide attack in Iraq until after the American invasion in 2003.

If these points are in fact a true reflection of why suicide terrorists do what they do then our administration's logic is flawed. The war is simply feeding the fire and perpetuating terrorism.