Is the UN the Root Cause of Global Terrorism?

How did terrorism, which has been around for centuries, go from a sporadic, often localized, atrocity to a global threat in the 21st Century. Are terrorists recruiting more vigorously? Do terrorist have more reasons to hate? Or have terrorists gotten more support than ever before?

A close look at some events in recent years seems to indicate it's the latter. What's most disturbing, though, is that the greatest motivational support has come not from internal sources or Arab countries, but from a somewhat unexpected source -- the United Nations.

To understand the progression of events leading up to global terrorism, it would help to look at the motives of some mass killers in the U.S., which are somewhat similar to those of international terrorists.

On December 5, 2007, Robert Hawkins, 19, walked into a Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, and killed eight people and himself. His suicide note read, in part, "Everyone will remember me as some sort of monster. ... [But] just think ... I'm gonna be ... famous."

Michael Welner, an associate professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine, pointed out, "'My fame is more important than your life,' that's basically what he said."

An FBI investigation into the infamous 1999 Columbine massacre showed that Hawkins demented yearning for fame and recognition was not unique. The public perception of the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, was they were lonely outcasts out for revenge on those who bullied them. But three months after the massacre, the FBI convened a summit in Leesburg, Va., that included world-renowned mental health experts, as well as Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Fuselier, the FBI's lead Columbine investigator and a clinical psychologist. They're conclusion was disturbingly different from public perception.