:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Monday, November 03, 2003 ::

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Terror - the fastest growing economy: "Rapid rise of the economy of terror

The war against groups such as al-Qaida stems from a clash of economic systems, not of religions, argues Loretta Napoleoni


Money is terrorism's lifeline. Economics, not politics or ideology, is the armed struggle's universal engine. This is the unexpected and disconcerting scenario unveiled by an economic analysis of modern terrorism."

"One-third of the $500bn generated every year by the new economy of terror is the product of legitimate businesses, some of which are conducted in the west. These are revenues produced primarily by Islamic bankers, traders, merchants - members of the emerging Muslim middle class. They, and not the radical clerics, are the real economic forces behind Islamist terror, and they fuel the Islamist insurgency across the Muslim world."

"The economic analysis of modern terrorism relegates religion to a mere recruiting instrument while focusing on the growing tension between a dominant western capitalist system and a populous Muslim nation, economically crippled by corruption and deceit. What we are witnessing today, therefore, goes well beyond the motivations of single Islamist armed groups: it is a clash between two economic systems - one dominant, the west, and the other insurgent, Islam."

:: Jim Nichols 11/03/2003 07:29:00 AM [+] ::
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