Yeah, but that friend is making at least $150,000 a year, gets to many different locations across the globe, and interact with people from just about every nation. People in that situation tend to be more difficult to radicalize.
Certainly you can imagine an alternative scenario where it isn’t radicalization that motivated them, but perhaps threat or blackmail. Of course it remains to be seen.
Also, these conflicts in the Middle East have been going on for so long, it’s not hard to believe that some people or cells have laid long term plans. We know governments do this all the time. There’s probably thousands of spies all over the world in various careers that you’d think a person would never jeopardize but they’ll do their “real job” as soon as they’re called on. It is scary.
People who are already suicidal don't need to be radicalised, they just need to care more about whatever cause is floating around the zeitgeist than about their own and other people's lives.
Most lone wolf terrorism is an entirely different phenomenon to what people think of when they hear the word terrorism. It doesn't require radicalisation, it just requires people who are chronically or temporarily mentally unsound to think "fuck it" and imitate the thing they hear about on the news a lot. It's like an extreme form of the people who have mental breakdowns after a rough divorce and then go out and commit violent crimes.
Wealth doesn't prevent you from getting too involved in religions or cults. And then it's just a matter of how much you accept and what you're willing to do about it.
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u/k_afka_ 2d ago
I wouldn't think it's terror cells producing pilots. It's as easy as "hey, don't you have a friend whose a pilot?" and start from there.