rationality

"It is important because it dispels the notion that terrorism or radical Islamism in general are products of ignorance or isolation and that all it takes is greater exposition to the wonders of the secular West (or for that matter East - as in, Confucian East Asia) to destroy its social base. Well, it isn't so. Greater education is likelier to introduce ideas of revolution that would be absent otherwise; greater exposition to the comparatively free politics of the West outrages more those who live under so different conditions."

Indeed, this is the part that should cause people everywhere to think twice about what they themselves are doing: Why are the people whose nature and profession tend toward rationality waging war on the West? Because it is rational and necessary to do so.

Perhaps the people of the West ought to ask themselves why that is so, and what can be done so that peaceful methods of change are more effective and therefore more rational.

Fortunately, some of that has already happened with the Arab Spring - and hopefully some of that will spill over inside the West soon, to allow the reforms that are absolutely necessary.