I think this Sun-Times Columnist may be onto something

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/2928826,CST-NWS-stein1129.article

Anyone realize would-be terrorists might just be crazy?

We don't have to believe them when they claim religious motivation

November 29, 2010

BY NEIL STEINBERG Sun-Times Columnist

<snip>Why are the actions of Mohamed Osman Mohamud any more representative of Islam than, oh, the Muslim families that were in Pioneer Square to watch the tree lighting? Who decides that?

Bigotry, as I've said before, is painting everybody with the same brush, and while we all see it's wrong for Mohamud to want to kill innocents as payback for whatever offense, real or imagined, is gnawing away his mind, fewer see that it's also wrong to condemn Muslims -- or Somalis, or immigrants, or 19-year-olds, or Oregonians -- because of what one twisted, hateful teen felt obligated to attempt.

But if religion isn't the true cause, what is? The next usual suspect is class. But Mohamud is no escapee from a Mogadishu slum, deformed by suffering. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen who attended Oregon State University. If he hated America that much, he could always have gone back to Somalia, where the average life span is 48 years. Nobody would stop him.

Why didn't he do that? Why try to hurt people instead? How about the possibility that he's out of his mind? Lots of people are. Yet few of them say, "I'm crazy, and I'm going to try to do horrible things because I'm insane." Rather, they seize on convenient, self-aggrandizing motives -- religion, for example -- and for some unfathomable reason, we believe them, and allow ourselves to be influenced by their reasoning.