Dr. Helen pointed to this piece by Steyn, which ends

with this:
So once again we see the foolishness of complaceniks who drone the fatuous cliches about how "in this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs." The men eager to self-detonate on infidel airliners are not goatherds from the caves of Waziristan but educated middle-class Muslims who have had the most exposure to the Western world and could be pulling down six-figure salaries almost anywhere on the planet. And don't look to "assimilation" to work its magic, either. We're witnessing a process of generational de-assimilation: In this family, yet again, the dad is an entirely assimilated member of the transnational elite. His son wants a global caliphate run on Wahhabist lines.

Used to know somebody who had- probably still does- bought into the "Poverty leads to terrorism" etc. line. One night she started that and a guy who usually didn't say much upped with "So why were the 9/11 hijackers from well-off families, some of them rich? Why had they gone to good universities?" She tried to deny that, and somebody else came in: "Yes, they were and did; it's in the records, we know who they were." She didn't answer. The look on her face was interesting; I couldn't decide if she was shocked at something she somehow had never heard, or thought she was being ganged up on unfairly. Maybe both.

bin Laden was from a wealthy family*; the heads of Hamas and Hizballah have piles of money and send their kids to Europe to fine universities(where, interestingly- and it's a bad sign- they fit right in) and send somebody else's kids to blow themselves up in the holy struggle against the evil Joooooos. But we still keep hearing the "They do it because of poverty" crap.

Oh, and if it's poverty, why do they do crap like destroy the working greenhouses the Israelis left behind? Instead of using them?

'Course, this also works as the excuse for dumbing down schools and passing kids on when they haven't learned anything: "They're poor, you can't expect them to learn like rich(i.e. have both parents and are expected to learn) children!" So they pass these kids on, they fail, and that's excused by 'poverty' they wouldn't be in if they'd been held to higher standards growing up. And yes, I include their 'parents' on welfare and dealing drugs and thinking prison is no big deal. Question: aside from an apparent desire to destroy everything just because it isn't perfect, WHY do progressives and liberals refuse to see that expecting someone to succeed, to learn, DEMANDING it of them, works? When schools were segregated and most black schools got a fraction of the resources white schools did, and black kids were expected by their parents and community to learn- no excuses- and behave, they did; the combination of more money and lowered standards sucks(not just for black kids, they're just the most dramatic example), but these people just won't recognize it.

*Count me as one who thinks bin Laden is dead. Until I see a video that can be proven to be current(not breaking to a still when current events come up) and him, I'll continue to think so.