Souless? Try Vacuous

Only Peggy Noonan* could write a lyrical narrative of how Northern Ireland's Catholics showed hatred toward the British Occupation and then extrapolate it to modern terrorism and say it happens because of our nation's decadent lifestyle (which apparently Peggy is NOT participating in from what I guess is her Upper West Side Penthouse). She sounds, just like Dinesh D'Souza, when she sings Al Qaeda's most ridiculous siren song.

Um, Peggums, you might want to look at the relationship between unpopular military occupations and the breeding of resentment based upon that.

Obviously, it is an overstatement to say ONLY Dame Peggums could be so illogical, as the last five years have shown us on the internet and cable television just about any right-winger is able to extrapolate the cause of middle eastern hatred toward America as being just about anything short of our actual policies and actions. Whatever the attitude some religious zealots have toward our alleged decadence is secondary to their hatred and resentment towards us for our policies. They envy us our freedoms, hell they resent our having wealth and prosperous in the fact of our our dominance and ham-handed assertions of same. The sooner we come to grips with this fact, the better.

Nothing justifies Not to justify terrorist acts, but understanding WHY they happen is of the utmost importance. They do not happen because of our smartphones, our HDTV, or our elaborate shoe collections -- they happen because of what we do, not what we are. The latter is just a bonus. If we lived in a repressive authoritarian dictatorship, they would still have their underlying grievances if we continued the same policies.

The last sentence is aimed particularly at the Bush Administration and just about every Republican Candidate.