Jim--while I agree it is an oversimplification, it is precisely this sort of over simplification which leads people toward violent acts. Certainly not all who engage in terrorist behaviors come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, but then many of them carry the baggage of the stories they have heard again and again about the horrible "fill in the blank" (I had several second and even third generation Irish friends who sent money to the IRA even though they never felt such oppression or any disadvantage as Irish Americans--hell most had never even been to Ireland), and many more cast themselves in the role of the savior of the oppressed--kind of like John Brown did. Add to this the anti-moslem rhetoric in some groups, and we see people pushed over the edge into becoming militant terrorists ("they won't even leave us alone to practice our religion").Terrorism is the result of poverty and daily humiliation, and of oppression and imperialist plunder.
as an anywhere near complete or entirely accurate explanation for Islamcist terrorism, (there are numerous examples of people who don't come from economically deprived or "oppressed" backgrounds who have been drawn to to this nihlistic death-cult ideology. The author of that piece seems to me to be engaging in lefty ideologically driven over-simplification; it's much more complex with many more factors than he posits.)
This is not an excuse for their actions, but it is at least a big part of the puzzle that must be solved. It's not easy, but peace is much harder to sustain than war--and a lasting peace must take into account the motivations of all parties, however illogical they may seem to us.
