Andrew, thanks for this.
I don't think there is one single reason these young people--some poor and unemployed, others highly educated and with good jobs--become terrorists. Rather I think each one has put together an individual complex of reasons.
Almost everyone, no matter their origins, religion, nation, wishes to feel personal pride for one's self and that which defines one's own group: race, religion, country, goals. I think it cannot be denied that there is something in the human psyche (perched right alongside that longing for a Great Controller) that considers it a noble cause to right the perceived wrongs and insults to one's self and one's tribe.
That is why there are feuds, vendettas, clan wars, Protestants killing Catholics, Shiites killing Sunnis, Serbs killing Bosnians, Jews killing Palestines, Rwandas killing Hutus--and vice versa. As Bush and countless others have said, "You are for us or against us." (Another example of regrettable rhetoric.)
When vengeance is enacted by OUR side it is perceived as good, anyone's "our side". When it is enacted by the "Other", our enemy (again, anyone's perceived enemy) it is terrorism and barbaric and beyond the range of understanding.
Who is not moved by the Christmas truce of 1914
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce
Everyone Sang
By
Siegfried Sassoon
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
If only they would have stopped right there and not returned to senseless slaughter. How different our world might have been. Imagine if Harry Truman has just filmed an atomic explosion and sent it to the Japanese, instead of sending the bomb itself. Yes, I am speculating, but there is always more than one path of action in the beginning.
I am in NO WAY condoning terrorist actions but if you approach it psychologically, if you look at the situation through the eyes of these (mostly) men, you might understand more about the fertile ground in which radicalization can occur.
The terrorists perceive the west as having declared themselves to be enemies of Islam and their way of life. I remember how appalled I was to hear the post 9/11 Bush rhetoric when he used the word "crusade". Millions of westernized Muslims and other in their own countries who had nothing to do with bringing down the World Trade Center heard this word as Christians hear the word "jihad".
And then the choice of singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9Y9NGXxdAg . That sent a bellicose message to everyone watching who was the "Other". Consider the message in the words of that song. In England, it was also sung by the archbishop of Canterbury and those gathered in the church in a (as we westerners saw it) manifestation of solidarity with the United States.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmpo0csiIMs
I know it isn't easy when the nation is in shock, but in the immediate aftermath (IMO) the opportunity to gather the support of a shocked world was wasted. What the moment called for was to establish a strong coalition between the two faiths, all faiths. Instead there was the invasion of Afghanistan, where the soviets had already been for ten years, and before them the British had fought, and the United States took on the role of vengeful aggressor with all the enemy-making potential that implies.
The drones, so these young terrorists might reason, also kill innocent "soft targets". and they see no difference between blowing up someone standing right in front of them or blowing up someone who doesn't even know they are in the crosshairs an ocean away. Dead is dead. They might even find it more honorable and braver to put their life on the line than to kill from a safe distance.
Which brings me to a thought I've been turning over in my mind. Because the suicide bomber kills himself along with his victims, there is never anyone who might repent in the agonizing throes of PTDS. The jihadist contingency sees only martyrdom, there is never any survivor who is overcome with remorse when he realizes what he has done against innocent people. It is the defectors from a cult who open doubt in the minds of the other members.
It isn't so difficult, I think, to find in any given group "idealists" who are susceptible to brainwashing and willing to offer their lives. This isn't a new weapon. The Japanese kamikaze pilots considered it a death of honor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze
Consider the early Christian martyrs depicted in countless horrific art museums throughout Europe and elsewhere. Eyeballs and severed breasts held out on a tray, flayings, drawn and quarterings. And then when that religion got the upper hand, it did the same to others: burning at the stake, the iron maiden, disembowelment. Nowhere is there any high moral ground available for the claiming.
Consider this scene in Saving Private Ryan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY61XmDJ-1w
That clip doesn't include the close-up of the soldier kissing the crucifix he wore, but even as he was reciting the twenty-first psalm and killing people he knew he was on a suicide mission.
No, it isn't difficult to understand the process of radicalization of young men, but a country's leaders and top advisors as well as the ordinary citizens should exercise forethought.
ISIS wants us to turn against the Muslims who live peacefully among us. We must love one another or die. We must.
Them's me thoughts.
PS. I have corrected some typos and clarified some foggy sentences and added some afterthought.