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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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Nope. ISIS is now the greatest driving force behind terrorism. They are motivated by a desire to enslave the rest of the world under an Islamic state, which follows their own hardcore interpretation of Islam. They are responsible for a fair bit of their own oppression. In the short time they've been in existence they've murdered, raped, pillaged, etc...The majority of their victims have been either other Muslims or more oppressed groups like the Yazidis.
I also really don't buy into the whole, "I heard about some other people being oppressed, so I decided to do my own oppressing" argument. Anyone who is truly motivated by the oppressed recognizes that all oppression is wrong. Osama Bin Laden was also more than a terrorist, he set up the Taliban which introduced hardcore Islamic rule and oppressed all citizens in Afghanistan. Do you honestly think he stopped 10s of millions of women from going to school because Muslims were being oppressed somewhere?