Lemondrop

On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit with explosives hidden in his underwear, but brave passengers and a faulty detonator thwarted his attempt.

And, in addition to putting a whole new spin on the "boxers or briefs" debate, the failed attack gave America yet another glimpse at a fascinating -- and often overlooked -- facet of terrorism.

First, it must be said: It's shocking that all these years after 9/11, the system put in place to protect us still has many flaws. And, in my opinion, many in the government do not take the terrorist threat as seriously as they should.

But the attempted Flight 253 bombing also showed us that many of the things we have been told about the poor, downtrodden jihadist are just not true. Abdulmutallab -- as many of the terrorists who have come before him, including Osama bin Laden and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed -- was far from disadvantaged. He was quite privileged and well-educated.

According to The Independent, 23-year-old Abdulmutallab lived a "gilded life" studying at one of Britain's leading universities and living in an expensive flat. He is the son of one of Nigeria's most prominent citizens.

It is no wonder after seeing eight years of images from the remote desert mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan of the search for Osama bin Laden, that the public would conjure an image of the backward, cave-dwelling jihadist.

What has often been the case though, especially in high-profile terrorist attacks (both successful and thwarted), is that the perpetrator was relatively wealthy. Columnist Michelle Malkin has written about a number of other privileged terrorists, such as Ayman al-Zawahiri who held a medical degree, Affia Siddiqui who studied microbiology at MIT and 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, who studied urban planning at Hamburg University.

These are people you might have worked alongside or sat next to in a college class. So what could drive a healthy, wealthy guy like Abdulmutallab, who was living comfortably in one of the most prosperous countries on Earth, to attempt to murder innocent men, women and children and try to kill himself the process? Jonathan Alpert, a New York City-based psychotherapist offers some insight to the mind of the upscale jihadi:

"There's an underlying conflict: temptation of the Western lifestyle (good education, professional career with high earning potential, sexual urges) vs. adhering to the strict teachings of the Koran. That, coupled with hatred towards the leadership of the Western world, leads to these young men feeling confused, lost, powerless, isolated and lonely. They are seduced by the Jihad and move from powerless to powerful, now feel certainty and a sense of importance as they aim for martyrdom in the name of Allah."

Alpert says it is not surprising that many of these young men hold degrees in engineering, "a discipline that is served well by rigid and inflexible thinking ... the very same traits necessary for one to adhere so strictly and unquestionably to an extremist belief system."

It is difficult to imagine ever being able to fully understand the mind of those who would seek to take innocent lives in the name of their god, but by recognizing that many of them move in the same circles we do, are well educated and prosperous, we can at least know that we are looking at the reality, rather than the inaccurate stereotype, of the modern-day terrorist.

Lorie Byrd is a conservative woman living in the suburban South, sharing her perspective on life with the online community since 2004 through political blogging (now at Wizbangblog.com) and opinion columns at various sites including Townhall.com, the Examiner, Pajamas Media and American Issues Project.