As I recall, the central argument in The True Believer is that poor people don't have the time or really the education to think about "how do we bring the whole system down."  The middle and upper classes have both, while poor folk are just concentrating on survival.  Because they hate being poor and miserable, it leaves them open to the first guy proclaiming they can have it all for free.  It's why Marxism continues to hang around despite it being proven to be at best a utopian dream and at worst an elitist nightmare.  The poor people of Venezuela should realize that Chavez cares about them only so far as they keep him in power.  If staying in power meant "switching sides" to the middle class, he'll do it and promptly throw the poor under the bus.

 

Another argument was that rich kids are spoiled, and as such end up feeling like they're missing something.  Money and broads can only fill the hole so long.  When they find what they think they're missing, they embrace it with the fervor of a fanatic.  There's two sides to this coin: St. Augustine was a big-time hedonist, but he found God, wrote some beautiful books on faith, and became a saint--but no one, least of all Augustine himself, would argue against the idea that he was a fanatic.  Then you get Osama, who has money, babes, a top-flight education--but no spiritual anchor.  He discovers Wahabbi Islam, and finds his "calling" in opposing the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.  He wins there, basically...but now the rush is gone.  There's no enemy to fight.  That is, until the US sends troops to Saudi during the First Gulf War.  Now Osama has his rush again and something to give his life meaning.

 

So I'm guessing that the movers and shakers in AQ are actually well-educated, smart men, who aren't motivated by poverty or necessarily greed.  They simply want the rest of the world to be exactly like them, because they're so obviously smarter than everyone else--Allah has told them so.  And those that oppose them: they must either convert or die.

 

Which means that, while the Obama administration's desire to fight poverty around the world is commendable, it's not going to help stop the hardcore fanatics like the Pantybomber or the 9/11 hijackers.  They're not poor.  They simply want us dead, and short of a major epiphany that Allah doesn't particularly appreciate mass murder, the only way to stop them is to kill them first.  It's not that dissimilar to dealing with the Nazis.

 

I read another case of this in the book Columbine, about the Columbine Massacre.  Dylan Klebold actually comes off somewhat sympathetic, a guy driven basically insane by the pressures of teenage life.  But Klebold never would've become a murderer without someone to follow--Eric Harris.  Reading Harris' blog entries is eerily similar to reading the last testament of the 9/11 bombers.  Harris was most definitely a true believer.  Also worth noting: neither Klebold nor Harris came from poor families, but rather very well-off ones.

What is there in Islam specifically that makes it a flammable religion? I only know bits'n pieces of it. All of what I know comes out quite peacefully to me. Maybe it's more about those who interpret.

 

Now I make a point I don't truly believe in myself but what might be fruitful to add into the mix: What if the wealthy moslims go terrorist because they identify with the average poor moslim? What if they actually feel priviledged to lead the movement that draws its justification from the grand 'being in the sidelines' -phenomena? Though they themselves are well fed poodles they still identify with the wolves so to speak.

 

I came up with this idea since I kinda guessed that other aspects will probably be better covered by rest of the community. 

- Nazi propaganda used on Arabs during WW2.

- Soviet propaganda used on Arabs during the cold war.

- Fundamentalist propaganda used on Arabs since 1972.

 

Basically these people have been subjected to the nastiest propaganda since the 1930's. That propaganda plays a large part in making it a flammable religion. Basically fundamentalism is just the next ism in line after facism, communism and also remarkably similar to those.

 

No doubt after fundamentalism is defeated there will be a next ism to raise it's ugly head.