Posted by casey at October 31st, 2005

Associate Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago has compiled an extensive database of all terrorist attacks from around the world since 1980. What he found is quite contrary to the current administration’s postulate that suicidal terrorism is driven by religious extremists.

The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign-over 95 percent of all the incidents-has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.

(Source The American Conservative)