[Marc Sageman, M.D., was a CIA case officer in Afghanistan between 1987-89 and is now a forensic psychiatrist. He is the author ofUnderstanding Terror Networks(University of Pennsylvania Press:2004), and is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Dr. Sageman’s research, based on 400 psychiatric case histories of Moslem terrorists provides a fascinating insight into the cause of Islamofascist terror. -JW]

Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to brainwashing - the sociopath, the criminals, the religious fanatic, or, in this country, some believe they’re just plain evil.

Taking these perceived root causes in turn, three quarters of my sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority—90 percent—came from caring, intact families. Sixty-three percent had gone to college, as compared with the 5-6 percent that’s usual for the third world. These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways.

Al Qaeda’s members are not the Palestinian fourteen-year- olds we see on the news, but join the jihad at the average age of 26. Three-quarters were professionals or semi- professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few humanities are represented, and quite surprisingly very few had any background in religion.

The natural sciences predominate. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, Zawahiri is a physician, Mohammed Atta was, of course, an architect. A few members are military, such as Mohammed Ibrahim Makawi, who is supposedly the head of the military committee.

Far from having no family or job responsibilities, 73 percent were married and the vast majority had children.

At the time they joined jihad, the terrorists were not very religious. They only became religious once they joined the jihad.

[The following letter was written by a lady on the staff of a United States Senator. She has asked that we only use her first name, Laura. TTP has personally confirmed with her the veracity of her account, which took place on February 8, 2004.]

I'm at the 8:00 am service at my church, St. Johns at Lafayette Square, across from the White House. (I wanted to go early because I was going with Alice and Brent for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Manassas.) Much of the service was uneventful--nice, but uneventful--until it comes to the part of the service when the priest says, "Greet one another in the name of the Lord." I turn to my right to exchange the peace with my friend Amy, who was on the other end of my pew. I then shake hands with the person in front of me, and turn around to say hello to the person behind me.

The person behind me was our 43rd President George W. Bush

My view has been that this man, who is a quasi-traitor and anti-American as well as a vacuous, arrogant snob, could not be elected president, unless perhaps his opponent were falling apart before our eyes, and Bush hasn’t reached that stage yet. Regardless of the polls, regardless of what’s going on in the world of politics, it would be unimaginable and unprecedented for the U.S. to elect such a man.

That’s been my position. But now it occurs to me that there is another way of seeing it:

Whether the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein were self-inflicted or not, the military operation to capture them was immaculate.
 
There were no American deaths, 10 minutes of warnings were given over loudspeakers, and it was the Iraqis who opened fire. So sensitive was the American approach, they even rang the bell of the house before entering.

The neat operation fits squarely with the tenor of the whole American campaign, contrary to the popular negative depiction of its armed forces:  that they are spoilt, well-equipped, steroid-pumped, crudely patriotic yokels who are trigger-happy yet cowardly in their application of overwhelming force.

”John X” is a very recently retired FSO (Foreign Service Officer) of many years at the State Department. It’s important to know that there are a good many conservatives sprinkled throughout the Foreign Service - and even on the Seventh Floor of Foggy Bottom itself. Most of them have to stay politically hidden, but with Condi they may start coming out of their closets. Here is “John’s” assessment, as a State Department professional, of Colin Powell. -JW


Powell had made no secret that he would resign after the election. We had been hearing rumors all last week that Powell had submitted his resignation letter; on Friday, November 12, a 7th floor source told me that Powell had sent his letter to the President. On Monday, of course, it was all over the media.

I was in the Department the day that Powell arrived. He was a breath of fresh air after a string of very bad Secretaries of State, starting with Jim Baker, continuing with the comatose Warren Christopher, and then the vile Madeleine Albright.

The State Department was in disarray, morale was at rock bottom, literally hundreds of officers had quit or taken early retirement. Our Embassies in many countries were barely functional, and very exposed to terrorist attack. Department employees were constantly being lectured on the need "to do more with less" but no reform of the bureaucracy was undertaken to make it leaner and more efficient; everything was pretty much left as it was, but just given less money -- except of course for Albright's travels, in my office she was known as the "Empress" for her lavish demands on the budget.

[Clinton’s Secretary of State was also nicknamed “Secretary Half-Bright” by virtually the entire Foreign Service. She was astoundingly stupid. - JW.]

So Powell was a relief.

I am glad to see Professor Hospers’ letter on websites such as WorldNetDaily. We offer it here in case you have not seen it. John Hospers changed my life, and so much for the better. When he was Chairman of the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, he persuaded me to teach there and get my Ph.D. under his guidance. That was 33 years ago, and whatever philosophic capacities I have result in large part from the impact of his wisdom and counsel.

It is a tragedy that so many libertarians pretend to live in Plato’s Cave, despising the real actual America because it does not live up to their Platonic ideals. Let’s hope Professor Hospers’ valiant effort persuades them to leave the comforting dark of fantasy and have the courage to fight for the country they actually live in. -JW

As a way of getting acquainted, let me just say that I was the first presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party back in l972, and was the author of the first full-length book, Libertarianism, describing libertarianism in detail. I also wrote the Libertarian Party’s Statement of Principles at the first libertarian national convention in 1972. I still believe in those principles as strongly as ever, but this year — more than any year since the establishment of the Libertarian Party — I have major concerns about the choices open to us as voting Americans.

There is a belief that’s common among many libertarians that there is no essential difference between the Democrat and Republican Parties — between a John Kerry and a George W. Bush administration; or worse: that a Bush administration would be more undesirable. Such a notion could not be farther from the truth, or potentially more harmful to the cause of liberty.

The election of John Kerry would be, far more than is commonly realized, a catastrophe.