A friend and I keep having different permutations of the same conversation, which revolves around this question: what is the essential explanation for Islamic terrorism? My friend’s answer is that it’s primarily religious; in other words, that something intrinsic to Islam spurs on suicide bombers and the like. I disagree for a number of reasons: […]
Tag Archives: Islam
Five Years Later
September 11, 2006 – 11:36 pm
The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were horrifying. We should never forget the murdered civilians and sacrificed lives of the police officers, firefighters, Flight 93 passengers, and other brave men and women. And it’s likely we as a nation won’t forget, thanks to the work of the national memory system–Hollywood–in depicting […]
The Jill Carroll Story
August 28, 2006 – 11:07 pm
The Christian Science Monitor today wrapped up its first-person account of journalist Jill Carroll’s abduction in Iraq earlier this year. I was particularly interested in the psychology of her abductors. The men who kidnapped Carroll murdered her translator, and they were apparently closely associated with al-Zarqawi. Yet they repeatedly expressed concern that she be comfortable, […]
In the Red Zone
October 8, 2005 – 11:50 pm
Steven Vincent authored In the Red Zone almost a year before he was murdered in Basra, Iraq. When I read about his death, I knew I had to read the book. A freelance journalist (actually a former art critic), he wrote articles from Iraq that were published in the National Review and The New York […]