Does polygamy cause terrorism?

Bachelors heard: Everyone's saying that welfare causes terrorism! Does polygamy cause terrorismtoo? ... P.S.: William Tucker  writes:

Today polygamy is not practiced widely in Islamic countries, and only accounts for about ten percent of all marriages. The country where the distribution of wives is most unequal—Saudi Arabia—seems to be the best at producing roving jihadists who roam the world in search of conflict.

But if polygamy isn't widely practiced in Islamic countries, can it really be so important that violent jihad is "unlikely to disappear until it is eliminated"? ... 12:40 A.M. link

Friday, July 29, 2005

Was Aswat/Not Aswat: The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Haroon Rashid Aswat, whom the paper said had been arrested in a madrassa in Pakistan, was in fact arrested in Zambia:

Two Pakistani sources said last week that Aswat had been arrested there. But other Pakistani officials subsequently denied that, and in recent days British and Indian officials said the arrest in Pakistan was a case of mistaken identity involving a Briton with a name similar to Aswat's.

kf made a big deal out of the Pakistani madrassa angle recently, arguing this undermined the Peter Bergen/Swati Pandey op-ed argument  that madrassas "are not and should not be considered a threat to the United States." I still think that op-ed was wildly unpersuasive--the madrassas are a problem even if they merely supply terrorists with an approving base of support rather than supplying the actual terrorists themselves. If they don't supply terrorists now they might in the future. And it still appears to be true that at least one of the 7/7 London bombers visited a madrassa. But the most dramatic bit of evidence against Bergen and Pandey appears to be non-evidence. ... P.S.: Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, has ordered an estimated 1,400 foreign students to leave the madrassas. See also. ... 11:25 P.M. link

A.T.C.F.k.: They  laughed when kf argued that the New York Times was "massively exposed" in the Steven Hatfill libel suit against op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof. ... They paid no attention when, after a lower-court federal judge threw the Hatfill suit out, kf wrote:

Maybe I'm missing something, but if I were Kristof, I wouldn't crow too loudly. Lower court decisions are made to be reversed. ...

They are not laughing now! Haftill's suit has been reinstated  on appeal. ... P.S.: Kristof reported that Hatfill had "failed three successive polygraph examinations" in connection with the anthrax mailings of 2001. How could that, if it isn't true, not be libelous? ... 11:23 A.M. link