Getting back to serious discussion, this is from an op-ed piece in today's San Francisco Chronicle. It presents an insight into Al Qaeda that I hadn't heard before. Here's an excerpt and a link to the full article.



MISJUDGING THE JIHAD
Like their leader, bin Laden's lieutenants are well educated, well traveled and well heeled

- John Arquilla
Sunday, November 13, 2005

Our attempts to reduce al Qaeda's flow of fresh recruits by spreading democracy and prosperity throughout the Muslim world are likely to backfire. That's partly because the political and military pressure that accompanies American-inspired "regime change" policies enrages many of the world's billion-plus Muslims, swelling the ranks of those who would oppose us.

But there is another big problem: We are shooting at the wrong target.

Over the years, al Qaeda cadres have generally not come from the pool of poor, semiliterate villagers who never ventured far from home and whose only education has been in religious schools, known as madrassas.

Instead, many of al Qaeda's fighters have been educated in first-rate universities, have been successful in a material sense and are well traveled.

Marc Sageman, a practicing psychiatrist and former CIA field agent who worked with the mujahedeen during their struggle against the nine-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that ended in 1989, notes that about 80 percent of al Qaeda members were living away from their home country when they joined the jihad.

His in-depth study, "Understanding Terror Networks," is based on personal histories of more than a hundred leading members of al Qaeda and portrays a movement energized by worldly, smart, idea-driven operatives.

In this respect, personal profiles of al Qaeda recruits have often resembled their leader's. Osama bin Laden is well educated, comes from a background of great wealth, yet has sacrificed all to lead his network into battle against a coalition of nations.

Instead of quietly enjoying his fortune and his family, and basking in the glory of victory over the Russians in Afghanistan, he took up the jihad once more.

While few terrorists have such starkly dramatic backstories, bin Laden is hardly an exceptional case of a man giving up privilege and embracing peril. Indeed, many al Qaeda fighters have personal histories that echo his.

John Arquilla is professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. His views do not represent official Defense Department policy.