Margaret Wente's piece on Muslim youths joining anti-Western jihad online went part way toward our remembering to ask, apart from the when-where-how of the next attack, about the why (The Global Internet Jihad: Spinning A Web Of Terror - Jan. 9).
The main sore points that eat at the Muslim world are the perceived unfairness of the creation of the state of Israel, and the displacement of the Palestinian people. Perceived Western immorality is another sore point.
Do radical Muslims really tell themselves they are going to take over the world? Perhaps, but not plausibly. Their way of life is under assault in the modern world - the subjugation of women, the lack of democracy in many Muslim states.
It is a clash of civilizations, one in which "they" are so unhappy they use violence to get our attention. Then, of course, we focus on the attacks and not the deeper reasons for their dissatisfactions.
While the Internet may create a place in which would-be jihadists can meet and plan, it will also, in the long run, be the place where cultures cross-disseminate information and gradually find a way to co-exist - at which point everyone will complain about the homogenization of culture across the world.