What are the causes and origins of terrorism?
The Al Qaeda terror network is at war with us. These terrorists, quite clearly, hate us and seek to do us harm. Osama bin Laden has called it a holy duty binding on every Moslem to kill every American within reach. In other words, he believes genocide against us is justified. Such hate is difficult for Americans to fathom, for we know ourselves to be a peaceable people. What, then, is the cause of such hatred? What are the grievances of the followers of Osama bin Laden which prompt them to commit mass murder of American civilians? Are they such that they could be appeased? At a macro-historical level, the terrorists of Al Qaeda see themselves as holy warriors in the long history of conflict between Islam and the unbelieversin particular, the unbelievers of the West, or Christendom. While we are now taught that the medieval Crusades were in their very nature a crime of intolerance (and it is surely true that the Crusaders committed innumerable shameful atrocities), we would do well also
