To: Abner Hosmer who wrote (76659 ) 9/16/2001 5:41:16 PM From: J.E.Currie Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 116752 Abner and all, The linked article below gives great understanding on the "why" of this great atrocity. I've excerpted some of it below. jectheatlantic.com The roots of Muslim rage Why so many Muslims deeply resent the West, and why their bitterness will not easily be mollified "This is no less than a clash of civilizations -- the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both. It is crucially important that we on our side should not be provoked into an equally historic but also equally irrational reaction against that rival." "The idea that God has enemies, and needs human help in order to identify and dispose of them, is a little difficult to assimilate." "In the classical Islamic view, to which many Muslims are beginning to return, the world and all mankind are divided into two: the House of Islam, where the Muslim law and faith prevail, and the rest, known as the House of Unbelief or the House of War, which it is the duty of Muslims ultimately to bring to Islam. But the greater part of the world is still outside Islam, and even inside the Islamic lands, according to the view of the Muslim radicals, the faith of Islam has been undermined and the law of Islam has been abrogated. The obligation of holy war therefore begins at home and continues abroad, against the same infidel enemy." "The struggle between these rival systems has now lasted for some fourteen centuries." "The French have left Algeria, the British have left Egypt, the Western oil companies have left their oil wells, the westernizing Shah has left Iran -- yet the generalized resentment of the fundamentalists and other extremists against the West and its friends remains and grows and is not appeased." "This is no less than a clash of civilizations -- the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both. It is crucially important that we on our side should not be provoked into an equally historic but also equally irrational reaction against that rival."