Terrorists - born or made?

[chem1st]

Murder is somewhat predictable. There is a correlation between certain things. Correlation does not prove causation though. Although it can be implied.

 

For example hurting animals for pleasure, setting fires and urinating yourself, these qualities tend to be linked to murder in later life. More often than not small children before adults/sprees.

 

It is even possible to predict war to a degree. Lewis Fry Richardson wrote some very interesting things on predicting war (our modern weather prediction techniques are based on much of his research too).

 

Terrorism too, terrorists tend to be educated young males who haven't achieved.

 

Which begs the question, isn't this stuff preventable?

 

Perhaps we should be focusing some resources on getting university drop outs and unemployed graduates into productive employment. Not only for the economic benefits, but for the reduction in potential terrorist actions. And of course, we should be helping other unemployed people get back into work.

[Vague_Boy]

Is your average terrorist (yes I know such a thing doesn't exist but bear with me) a borderline sociopath who gravitates towards causes that give him/her the greatest licence for violence

 

One man's terrorist is often another man's freedom fighter?

 

Nelson Mandela a "borderline sociopath"?

 

Mandela came to the opinion that the ANC "had no alternative to armed and violent resistance" after taking part in the unsuccessful protest to prevent the demolition of the all-black Sophiatown suburb of Johannesburg in February 1955. He advised Sisulu to request weaponry from the People's Republic of China, but while supporting the anti-apartheid struggle, China's government believed the movement insufficiently prepared for guerilla warfare

 

LINK

 

Most people make the mistake of thinking that because they see terrorists as the villains, the terrorist do as well.

 

Is it then true that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"? After all, many Irish consider McGuinness and his Sinn Fein comrade Gerry Adams, whom Bill Clinton invited to the White House for St. Patrick's Day, as freedom fighters in the tradition of the "martyrs" of the "Easter Rising" of 1916, celebrated by the poet W. B. Yeats.

 

LINK

 

Many governments conduct actions that are only differentiated from terrorism by the phony veneer of sham legality.

 

I guess if you get enough votes you can twist morality into a Gordian Knot.