Daniel Greenfield writes Terrorism Without End in Frontpagemag.com , 2/25/13:

Excerpt:

 Terrorism can never be defeated by fighting terrorists. Combine massive wealth in some parts of the Middle East with staggering poverty in other parts and the supply of mercenaries is nearly endless. Syrian Jihadists are being paid $150 a month by Qatar; a good salary for an unskilled laborer in a region where life is cheap and every family has plenty of surplus sons and mouths to feed. A barrel of oil can buy the services of a killer for a month and Qatar pumps out millions of barrels a day.

Terrorism is cheap for the sponsors, profitable for the participants and hideously expensive for the targets. A soldier in a First World nation can cost six figures. For that same amount, a backward oil tyranny can field a hundred men. When those hundred men kill a soldier, then his nation will be heartbroken and question the costs of war. When those hundred men die, their mothers will ceremonially wail and cry out for more martyrs to avenge them. And the terror will go on.

Terrorism has no “off switch” because it’s too profitable. There is no down side for its sponsors who can inflict significant amounts of harm and collect enormous profits for a few million here and there. Their power to temporarily turn off the terror makes them even more powerful and influential.

Muslims have gone from nonentities in the Western political sphere to huge power players not through oil, but through the terror that they bought with that oil. Americans paid little attention to Muslims until September 11. Since then Muslims have been flattered and promoted, their political interests have been pandered to and their leaders have gained an enormous amount of influence. Not only has all this pandering failed to stop terrorism, it has instead provided a compelling motive for more terrorism.

HKO

Alan Dershowitz noted that terrorism exists because it pays.  Since 9/11 it has delivered a better political return on investment than oil.

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