Why is Sadr so successful at getting an "army" together? Middle East "armies" differ from our street gangs like Blackstone Nation, the Crips, Bloods, and the Mafia. It is true that most members of both groups are ignorant and many are just plain stupid. It is also true that they engage in thuggery, robbery, and murder. But the Sadr army, like al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist armies in the Mid-East are composed of people who have great faith in a God. Today Bill Quick refers to Eric Hoffer, a 50s icon now out of favor because to believe him is to abandon most mass movements now required by Leftist thinking. Here's just one quote from that 50s philosopher that might make you realize why somebody of great faith becomes a terrorist.

Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born of experience and the possession of skill.

The substitute for self-confidence is faith ... the substitute for self-esteem is pride; and the substitute for individual balance is fusion with others in a compact group.

In the chemistry of the soul, a substitute is almost always explosive if for no other reason than that we can never have enough of it. We can never have enough of that which we really do not want. What we want is justified self-confidence and self-esteem.

We can be satisfied with moderate confidence in ourselves and with a moderately good opinion of ourselves,........

But the faith we have in a holy cause has to be extravagant and uncompromising, and the pride we derive form an identification with a nation, race, leader, or party [religion] is extreme and overbearing."

Just think Crips and Mafia. The world is filled with people with grammar school educations willing to follow a successful ruthless leader. When you put GOD into the equation you get Islam. When you put in a human substitute like Hitler you get Hitler Youth and the Japanese "code of the Samurai" (Bushido). Think the Vikings (not Minnesota). When you add well educated people you get total fanatics, sure in their belief system and direction; top Nazis, Communists, Mulims; you can never stop the educated fanatics unless you kill them. All, the uneducated and the educated, "know" that death in war is the highest possible way to die; that death in battle, even suicide in battle, guarantees Heaven.

Guarantees Heaven. Think about that. Every bad thing you have ever done is erased by a grateful God. Every loser can achieve Paradise just by killing someone and dying in the course of doing it.

Combine faith with peer approval and parental approval, and you have the street thugs of Iraq and the terrorists of Islam. If the U.S. gangs ever had a purpose higher than money, drugs, and sex you would see the same thing here. And don't think that can't happen; see Nation of Islam and our pal Louis Farrakhan.