MARINA DEL REY, CA--The idea that poverty is a root cause of terrorism will be a central theme at this week's UN Conference on Financing for Development, which President Bush will attend. But the fact is, said Alex Epstein, a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute, "terrorism is not caused by poverty."
      "The terrorists of September 11 did not attack America in order to make Afghanistan richer," said Epstein. "To the contrary, their stated goal was to repel any penetration of the prosperous culture of the industrialized 'infidels' into their world. The wealthy Osama bin Laden was not using his millions to build electric power plants or irrigation canals. If he and his terrorist minions wanted prosperity, they would seek to emulate the United States--not to destroy it."
      What then is the root cause of terrorism? "It is the ideas individuals choose to adopt," said Epstein, "that guide their actions for good or evil. A desire to destroy the symbols of wealth and to slaughter thousands of innocent human beings cannot be explained by a lack of money or a poor quality of life--only by anti-wealth, anti-life ideas. These terrorists are motivated by the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism. This other-worldly, authoritarian doctrine views America's freedom, prosperity, and pursuit of worldly pleasures as the height of depravity. To these fundamentalists, Americans are 'infidels' who, according to the Koran, should be killed."
      "The terrorists hate us," said Epstein, "because of their ideology--a fact that filling up the coffers of third-world governments will do nothing to change. What then, can our government do? It cannot directly eradicate the deepest, philosophical roots of terrorism; but by using military force, it can eliminate the only 'root cause' relevant in a political context: state sponsorship of terrorism. America has the military might and the moral right to remove that cause. Dropping bombs, not food packages, is the only way for our government to attack terrorism at its root."

ARI executive director Yaron Brook is available for interviews on this topic.