Unemployment Breeds Terrorism

The American Empire is hoping not to reconstruct the Middle East into a vast zone of democratic capitalism, but to use up the vast reserves of surplus labour by killing and jailing them. The Terrorism Labor Market "A special report from the United States Institute of Peace (2002) focuses on how Islamic extremists mobilize support. The report highlights the humiliation of being treated as “second class” citizens by their governments as a major reason people join extremist groups. Other reasons include the desire to promote political goals, and for financial, spiritual, and emotional incentives. Two types of labor are sought by the extremist groups: young, uneducated “foot soldiers” and better educated elite operatives. The media is often used as a means to rally support, and in Pakistan the educated members are often plucked from religious schools called madaris. These ideas suggest that a number of social, political, cultural, and economic conditions might create a fertile environment for some individuals to form preferences for terrorism. Yom and Saleh (2004), in an empirical paper, looked at the labor supply of Palestinian suicide bombers. Although suicide strategies started seven years before 9/11 and even though the lives of the Palestinians have not improved since then, they still continue with the bombings. The bombers are not just the instruments of terrorist leaders nor are they brainwashed. The suicide bombers are generally young, with large families, and better educated than the average Palestinian citizen. However, it is found that many of the bombers had violent encounters with the Israel Defense Forces and as a result many were injured, imprisoned, or lost a family member, so revenge could be a factor in their participation in terrorist groups. Participation in terrorist organizations is also increased due to closures that Israel enforces on Palestinian territories. These closures leave thousands unemployed because many Palestinians rely on Israel for jobs. The closures also disturb the prospects for good jobs within the territories. Because the closures hurt earning potential, those who are highly qualified for jobs, such as many of the suicide bombers, face high losses relative to the investment that they have made in education and job training. This can create incentives to join illegal activity. Yom and Saleh suggest that increasing income per capita will reduce Palestinian attacks against Israelis, and that decreasing unemployment will discourage youth from joining terrorist groups. These suggestions parallel the results of Landes (1978) in which the time and flight interval of hijackings decreased when per capita spending increased and unemployment decreased." And it is using up its own surplus labour population by specifically mobilizing its National Guard, a home reservist army of the employed. In doing so they decrease the labour force at home, and thus free up jobs for others resulting in a three year decline in unemployment in the United States. With the death toll at three thousand American soldiers and over twenty thousand injured, some seriously enough to never return to work, jobs once held by these workers are now being filled by others. In other words the War on Terror is a War on the Unemployed Youth of the Middle East. The vast majority of populations in Iran, Egypt, Iraq, and other countries are now under the age of thirty. And they have vast amounts of college and university education. What they don't have is jobs. http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2007/01/unemployment-breeds-terrorism.html [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on January 15, 2007]

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