One given in the war against terrorism seems to be that
suicide attackers are evil, deluded or homicidal misfits
who thrive in poverty, ignorance and anarchy.

President Bush, at last year's United Nations conference on
poor nations in Monterrey, Mexico, said that "we fight
against poverty because hope is an answer to terror."
Senator John Warner, the Virginia Republican, argued that a
new security doctrine including wars of preemption was
necessary because "those who would commit suicide in their
assaults on the free world are not rational." A State
Department report issued on the first anniversary of the
9/11 attacks said that development aid should be based "on
the belief that poverty provides a breeding ground for
terrorism."

As logical as the poverty-breeds-terrorism argument may
seem, study after study shows that suicide attackers and
their supporters are rarely ignorant or impoverished. Nor
are they crazed, cowardly, apathetic or asocial. If
terrorist groups relied on such maladjusted people, "they
couldn't produce effective and reliable killers," according
to Todd Stewart, a retired Air Force general who directs
the Ohio State University program in international and
domestic security.

In the suicide bombing of a cafe in Tel Aviv last week that
killed three bystanders, for instance, the bomber and the
man accused of being his accomplice grew up in Britain, in
relatively prosperous circumstances, and attended college.

The Princeton economist Alan Krueger and others released a
study in 2002 comparing Lebanese Hezbollah militants who
died in violent action to other Lebanese of the same age
group. He found that the Hezbollah members were less likely
to come from poor homes and more likely to have a secondary
school education.

Nasra Hassan, a Pakistani relief worker, interviewed nearly
250 aspiring Palestinian suicide bombers and their
recruiters. "None were uneducated, desperately poor,
simple-minded or depressed," she reported in 2001. "They
all seemed to be entirely normal members of their
families."

A 2001 poll by the nonprofit Palestinian Center for Policy
and Survey Research indicated that Palestinian adults with
12 years or more of education are far more likely to
support bomb attacks than those who cannot read.

Officials with the Army Defense Intelligence Agency who
have interrogated Saudi-born members of Al Qaeda being
detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have told me that these
fundamentalists, especially those in leadership positions,
are often educated above reasonable employment level; a
surprising number have graduate degrees and come from
high-status families. Their motivation and commitment are
evident in their willingness to sacrifice material and
emotional comforts (families, jobs, physical security), to
travel long distances and to pay their own way.

The body of research shows that over all, suicide
terrorists tend not to have the attributes of the socially
dysfunctional (fatherless, friendless, jobless). They don't
vent fear of enemies or express hopelessness or a sense of
"nothing to lose" because of lack of a career or social
mobility as would be consistent with economic theories of
criminal behavior. Suicide attackers don't opt for paradise
out of despair. If they did, say Muslim clerics who
countenance martyrdom for Allah but not personal suicide,
their actions would be criminal and blasphemous.

A study of world attitudes toward America by the Pew
Research Center in December 2002 and many other polls of
Muslims from Algeria to Indonesia show ever-rising support
for "martyrs." A United Nations report indicated that as
soon as the United States began building up for the Iraq
invasion, Qaeda recruitment has picked up in 30 to 40
countries. Recruiters for groups sponsoring terrorist acts
tell researchers that volunteers are beating down the doors
to join.

This allows terrorist agents to choose recruits who are
intelligent, psychologically balanced and socially poised.
Candidates who mostly want virgins in paradise or money for
their families are weeded out. Those selected show patience
and the ability to plan and execute in subtle, quiet ways
that don't draw attention. Al Qaeda, especially, is rarely
in a hurry. It can wait years and then strike when least
expected.

It's the particular genius of the institutions like Al
Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah that they are able to make
otherwise well-adjusted people into human bombs. Intense
indoctrination, often lasting 18 months or more, causes
recruits to identify emotionally with their terrorist cell,
viewing it as a family for whom they are as willing to die
as a mother for her child or a soldier for his buddies.
Consider the oath taken by members of Harkat al Ansar, a
Pakistan-based ally of Al Qaeda: "Each martyr has a special
place - among them are brothers, just as there are sons and
those even more dear."

Brian Barber, a psychologist at the University of
Tennessee, has interviewed some 900 young adults from Gaza
and a comparison group of Bosnian Muslims who had also
suffered through violence but had not become a source of
suicide bombers. The Bosnians had markedly weaker
expressions of self-esteem and less hope for the future.
Faith was the largest difference: the Palestinians
routinely invoked religion to invest personal trauma with
social meaning, whereas the Bosnians did not consider
religion significant to their life.

This overall pattern was also captured in a white paper by
the Parliament of Singapore concerning captured operatives
from Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group allied with Al
Qaeda: "These men were not ignorant, destitute or
disenfranchised. Like many of their counterparts in
militant Islamic organizations in the region, they held
normal, respectable jobs. As a group, most of the detainees
regarded religion as their most important personal value."

Like the best Madison Avenue advertisers, but to ghastlier
effect, the charismatic leaders of terrorist groups turn
ordinary desires for family and religion into cravings for
what they're pitching.

 
How do we combat these masters of manipulation? President
Bush and many American politicans maintain that these
groups and the people supporting them hate our democracy
and freedoms. But poll after poll of the Muslim world shows
opinion strongly favoring America's forms of government,
personal liberty and education. A University of Michigan
political scientist, Mark Tessler, finds Arab attitudes to
American culture most favorable among young adults
(regardless of their religious feeling) - the same
population that recruiters single out.

It is our actions that they don't like: as long ago as
1997, a Defense Department report (in response to the 1996
suicide bombing of Air Force housing at the Khobar Towers
in Saudi Arabia) noted that "historical data show a strong
correlation between U.S. involvement in international
situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the
United States."

Shows of military strength don't seem to dissuade
terrorists: witness the failure of Israel's coercive
efforts to end the string of Palestinian suicide bombings.
Rather, we need to show the Muslim world the side of our
culture that they most respect. Our engagement needs to
involve interfaith initiatives, not ethnic profiling.
America must address grievances, such as the conflict in
the Palestinian territories, whose daily images of violence
engender global Muslim resentment.

Of course, this does not mean negotiating with terrorist
groups over goals like Al Qaeda's quest to replace the
Western-inspired system of nation-states with a global
caliphate. Osama bin Laden seeks no compromise. But most of
the people who sympathize with him just might.

Scott Atran, a research scientist at the National Center
for Scientific Research in Paris and at the University of
Michigan, is author of ``In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary
Landscape of Religion.''