Talbot - //At least he is trying to make sense of the senseless
Super Smashing ... let me know when he has accomplished that. //
That approach is exactly what keeps us in the current state of terrorism and 'war on terror' to use President Bush's laughable an inaccurate (but great vote-catching!) phrase!
Muslim extremists are here, and they are not going away any time soon, so we have two choices.
We can treat them like some sort of alien species and try (and fail) to destroy them, which simply adds fuel to their argument that the West hates them, and produces an ever-decreasing vicious circle.
Or we can attempt to understand what motivates them, which can be positive step towards trying to get them to stop what they are doing.
Let's face it, stubbornly treating terrorists like monsters (which they are, but they don't think they are) simply re-enforces their notion that we are the evil party. So a level of understanding has to be worth a try - it can't make things any worse.