There are two reasons peoples wage war on each other. The first is over what we might call matters of engineering; the second is over what we might call matters of identity.
The first kind are disputes over things like water rights, land, etc. Engineering disputes are easy to resolve in theory, though they may be impossible to resolve in practice: that is why they are 'engineering' disputes. The question is whether you can (and can afford to) craft and build a solution that allows an acceptable distribution of whatever is being fought over. Wealth, power, whatever: the only reason people are fighting is because they want more than what they have. If we can craft a better way to use and arrange access to what we have, we can often put an end to the conflict.
The second type of war is nearly impossible to solve, because it touches not mere practical goods, but matters of the human heart.
The AP describes the Times Square bomber as a man whose life seemed to unravel; but that is to take the passive voice. The truth is that he unraveled it. He had every success that a young man in Pakistan is taught to seek: he obtained an H1-B visa, giving him access to the opportunity to compete for wealth and work in the world's richest market. He obtained an advanced education, including an MBA. He had a nice home in the suburbs, a family, and even U.S. citizenship. He had it all: tens of millions in India and Pakistan are working and dreaming of what he got.
He let it go, choosing instead to return to Pakistan, seek out the training camps of the Jihad, to learn to build bombs and try to destroy the land that gave him such wealth, success, and stability.
This is not the first time. Remember Zacarias Moussaoui:
He holds a master's degree in International Business from South Bank University in London, having enrolled in 1993 and graduated in 1995.These are the people that al Qaeda sought out, and that radicals today still seek. They have the education and passports to move freely in the West. They are almost untouchable. Yet they are unsatisfied with the life of the West, hate it in their hearts, and long for something else.
Insofar as we do not understand just what it is they want, we won't be able to begin to address this problem. So here is a sketch: what they want is the story. They want the heroic epic. They want to be a hero fighting for God, in a clash of good against evil.
That is a conflict of identity. There is no engineering solution: you cannot give them greater access to wealth or resources, because they are already throwing away wealth and resources that are the very dream of millions and tens of millions. It is a question of who they want to be: it is a question of a fury at the core of the being, that comes from failing to be a man you can yourself respect.
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