FOLLOW-UPMarc Shulman posed a tough question for me in the comment section of the post below, which I have tried to answer. Additionally,
Jeff at
Caerdroia has also posted
a long analytical piece on America's strategic choices in the war to end Jihadi terrorism that bears reflection:
"To begin, how do you identify the potential terrorists? If you look at the known information on the London terrorists, and the 9/11 terrorists, and the numerous other terrorists that have operated outside of predominantly-Muslim countries, you find that they are by and large middle-class, educated, not particularly rigidly observant, young Muslim men, entranced by the ideology of particularly rigidly observant and intolerant old Muslim men. There happen to be a large fraction of the immigrants to Western nations (particularly Europe) who are middle-class, educated, not particularly rigidly observant young Muslim men who are not entranced by the ideology of particularly rigidly observant and intolerant old Muslim men. So how do you separate out people whose only distinguishing characteristic is what they believe and whom they follow?"Read the whole thing.