[Marc Sageman, M.D., was a CIA case officer in Afghanistan between 1987-89 and is now a forensic psychiatrist. He is the author ofUnderstanding Terror Networks(University of Pennsylvania Press:2004), and is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Dr. Sageman’s research, based on 400 psychiatric case histories of Moslem terrorists provides a fascinating insight into the cause of Islamofascist terror. -JW]Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to brainwashing - the sociopath, the criminals, the religious fanatic, or, in this country, some believe they’re just plain evil.Taking these perceived root causes in turn, three quarters of my sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority—90 percent—came from caring, intact families. Sixty-three percent had gone to college, as compared with the 5-6 percent that’s usual for the third world. These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways.Al Qaeda’s members are not the Palestinian fourteen-year- olds we see on the news, but join the jihad at the average age of 26. Three-quarters were professionals or semi- professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few humanities are represented, and quite surprisingly very few had any background in religion. The natural sciences predominate. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, Zawahiri is a physician, Mohammed Atta was, of course, an architect. A few members are military, such as Mohammed Ibrahim Makawi, who is supposedly the head of the military committee.Far from having no family or job responsibilities, 73 percent were married and the vast majority had children.At the time they joined jihad, the terrorists were not very religious. They only became religious once they joined the jihad.

”John X” is a very recently retired FSO (Foreign Service Officer) of many years at the State Department. It’s important to know that there are a good many conservatives sprinkled throughout the Foreign Service - and even on the Seventh Floor of Foggy Bottom itself. Most of them have to stay politically hidden, but with Condi they may start coming out of their closets. Here is “John’s” assessment, as a State Department professional, of Colin Powell. -JWPowell had made no secret that he would resign after the election. We had been hearing rumors all last week that Powell had submitted his resignation letter; on Friday, November 12, a 7th floor source told me that Powell had sent his letter to the President. On Monday, of course, it was all over the media.I was in the Department the day that Powell arrived. He was a breath of fresh air after a string of very bad Secretaries of State, starting with Jim Baker, continuing with the comatose Warren Christopher, and then the vile Madeleine Albright. The State Department was in disarray, morale was at rock bottom, literally hundreds of officers had quit or taken early retirement. Our Embassies in many countries were barely functional, and very exposed to terrorist attack. Department employees were constantly being lectured on the need "to do more with less" but no reform of the bureaucracy was undertaken to make it leaner and more efficient; everything was pretty much left as it was, but just given less money -- except of course for Albright's travels, in my office she was known as the "Empress" for her lavish demands on the budget.[Clinton’s Secretary of State was also nicknamed “Secretary Half-Bright” by virtually the entire Foreign Service. She was astoundingly stupid. - JW.]So Powell was a relief.

If you think the fighting has been rough in Fallujah, wait until you see Washington in the springtime. President Bush's early personnel decisions for the second term suggest that he is preparing, unilaterally, to take on not only our foreign enemies, but also the Democrats and Washington's most cunning and vicious bureaucracies-all at the same time. With the nominations of Condoleezza Rice at State, Porter Goss at CIA, Donald Rumsfeld (or an equally tough replacement) at Defense and Stephen Hadley at NSC, the president has created an all-Patton foreign and defense team. Moreover, he has a team that understands that among the necessary targets of their firepower must be, not only our foreign enemies, but also the slouching, sly, insubordinate bureaucrats under their chain of command.