" I think that it's far easier to imagine the bombers thinking (like the 9/11 terrorists) "I'm doing this because of what these people are doing to my people," that to imagine them thinking "I'm doing this because I'm politically isolated." "
Did they say that?
This is what Mohammed Bouyeri, who killed Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh said yesterday in court:
"I pray that God protect me that I should ever think differently than I do now." "I knew what I was doing, and I succeeded." "I swear to God, if there were a death penalty, I would be begging for it," apart from that he refused to answer, holding the Qu'ran above his head, while leaving the court.
This was shoe bomber Richard Reid's testimony:
[US District Judge William Young asked Mr Reid if he had intended to blow up the plane.] "Yeah." "Basically I got on the plane with a bomb. Basically I tried to ignite it. Basically, yeah, I intended to damage the plane." [The judge asked Mr Reid why he had pleaded guilty.] "Because I know what I've done. At the end of the day I know that I done the actions." "I don't care. I'm a follower of Osama bin Laden. I'm an enemy of your country and I don't care." [The judge asked Mr Reid if he had consulted with his lawyers about his guilty plea and if he understood what he was doing.] "I don't recognise your system so how can I be satisfied?"
I would say that was pretty close to a demonstration of alienation from society at large - bearing in mind Reid was born and raised in Britain, Bouyeri was raised in Holland by his Moroccan parents.
Leninology writes
" The concept of blowback ... The only claim it involves is that if you engage in aggressive policies toward some parts of the world, some people may eventually want to exact revenge - not necessarily in ways that most people would find acceptable."
Revenge? But none of the bombers in Europe or America came from Iraq, but from Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and Pakistan - all countries that have made their peace with the West.
As we speak, it is homes in Leeds that are being searched (and the last time I went to my birthplace, it was not under military occupation).
Take the case of English public schoolboy turned terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh a former student at the London School of Economics and assassin of Daniel Pearl: what 'revenge' was he pursuing, exactly? Did the doorman at the LSE snub him? Did his Daddy refuse to buy him a new Mercedes?
I think that it is best to take the perpetrators own explanations rather than interject our own rationalisations of their actions: they were defending belief against unbelief, and I am on the side of doubt.