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Originally Posted by New Era
I agree with much of what you are saying here. I have a problem with the bolded part. You are not delving into their motivations for doing these things. This is the weakness of the many parties fighting terrorism. They don't understand what would drive anyone to do something so extreme, especially those from wealthy families.
Wealth and affluence have little to do with beliefs. They greatly impact the ability for an individual to act out, but they do not impact the motivations of an individual's beliefs. Nor does it impact an individual's commitment to their belief system or how they perceive how that belief system is accepted. The reality is that Osama bin Laden became a terrorist not because he was rich, but because he felt his beliefs were being oppressed. He joined the mujaheddin because he saw his fellow Muslims being oppressed by the Soviets. The same goes with the rest of the extremists from every religion or ideology.
Now you may not like the term oppression, and prefer other terms, but these people are driven by righting a social injustice they feel is being forced on their beliefs. We'll move away from the radicalized Islamic angle and instead focus on something closer to home. The Bundy's took over the Oregon Wildlife Refuge because of the oppression they saw from the US federal government. This was directly as a result of oppression, the Bundy's own words. Cliven, Ryan and Ammon Bundy all made claims of actions by the "oppressive" federal government as the motivation for their actions in Nevada and Oregon.
Same thing extended to bin Laden and al-Zawahari and their cadre of radicals. They saw the oppression of their wahhabism as an affront to their core beliefs. When they were denied access to the governance process their next step was extremism. I'm not defending any of these people, just explaining the motivation for their actions. You can't defeat an enemy until you understand your enemy.
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So I get what your saying, but when you look at these monsters that are following ISIS and being inspired and recruited by ISIS, the whole fighting social injustice argument goes out the window when you talk about a group that machine guns woman and children, commits acts of savage mass rape and a host of other brutal atrocities including attempting acts of genocide against other Muslim Groups. You even saw it in the video above where they believed that the Kurds who are other Muslims are unbelievers. At this point we are talking about a group that is equivalent to the Nazi's.
I mean I'm sure that there are radicals that believe in the whole social injustice thing. But what percentage of ISIS supporters are that, and what percentage are thrill killers with no life who's goal is to be able to legally rape a kid?
Yes absolutely understanding motivation is key, but by simply saying its one motivation means that your blinding yourself to the fact that this problem with radicalization goes far beyond merely being able to pin social injustice and oppression on it.