Poverty Doesn’t Create Terrorists

In his National Security Strategy issued in November 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush asserted that poverty was one of the factors leading to increased terrorist activities. This article in the New York Times, however, argues that civil liberty is the main factor and that wealth has little to do with terrorist activities. The author cites a study which found that many suicide bombers were from fairly well-off families, and that a larger number of them had education beyond high school. Richer countries such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, which are economically well off, still spawn terrorists because they lack civil liberties, says the author. – YaleGlobal