Why So Many Terrorists Get Their Start as Engineers

Sphere ^ | December 29, 2009 | Russell Berman

[rmlew]

They are easy pickings. Foreign engineers don’t get the girls and are alienated. 72 virgins and a sense of belonging begin to sound good.

[MuttTheHoople]

No, I’m not. I’m a licensed and registered engineer. I’ve been to the Nerd conventions. I’ve seen them.

[Locomotive Breath]

“Being an engineer can be an empty lifestyle, if you derive all your meaning out of it.”

Big if. Applies to any line of work you care to mention. I’ve been an engineer for 32 years including getting a Ph.D. and 14 years as a professor. I can think of very few engineers that are described by your statement.

[1rudeboy]

First of all, they are not my "hero" researchers. Second, why don't you come up with a theory why engineers are under-represented in left-wing terrorist groups? The authors cite to studies of the Red Army Faction, Red Brigades, Japanese Red Army, and some Latin American groups (granted those studies are from the 60's and 70's, and times change).

I think you protest too much: the authors see a pattern, and are trying to explain it. According to their observations, left-wing terrorism is correlated with the studies of law and the humanities, and right-wing terrorism is correlated with the study of engineering. They define* right-wing extremism as "aim[ing] to restore a lost, often mythical order of privileges and authority, emerg[ing] as a backlash against displacement or status deprivation in a period of sharp social change." Now, that definition (Lipset and Raab, 1971) might have been created by a bunch of leftists, but I'd like to see you demonstrate why it doesn't fit first.

And I don't think you have a grasp on cause and effect. (Apart from arguing that Islamists are leftists, which isn't even the right battle here, and hardly the same war). You wonder why the authors don't ask, "why radical Muslims become engineers rather than why engineers become radical Muslims?" while for all practical purposes, it is the same question. Here, that is.

Radical Islamists are fellow travelers with Bill Ayers, John Kerry and the Winter Soldiers, and Al Gore. Osama Bin Laden's propaganda could easily have been written by the editorial staff of the New York Times.

And to illustrate my point, how many of the above group are engineers?

_____
*"Unlike left-wing extremism, which aims at broadening the lines of power and privilege, right-wing extremism aims to restore a lost, often mythical order of privileges and authority, and emerges as a backlash against displacement or status deprivation in a period of sharp social change (Lipset and Raab 1971). In its underlying craving for a lost order, its match with radical Islamic ideology is undeniable: the theme of returning to the order of the prophet's early community is omnipresent in most salafist and jihadist texts."

[JG52blackman]

how about the IRA, red brigades, Sendero luminoso, I’m sure there’s more of the Communist/atheist persuasion. In fact, the USSR was the primo godfather sponsor of worldwide terrorism before its collapse. Now the major sponsors are Islamist, so Muslim terrorists predominate.

[NHResident]

Actually, over 30 years as a manufacturing engineer and then a software engineer, backed up by both a BS and MS in Engineering. Have worked with them on 4 continents and about dozen different countries. For the past 19 years, have run my own company and staffed it with engineers from USC, MIT, Cornell, UT, etc. Thanks anyway.