“Violence in Search of a Cause”
I don’t usually link to opinion or news analysis columns, both because it strikes me as a little cannibalistic and because my esteemed blogging partner is better at it than me. But this column from Times writer, “decent” leftist and bete noire of common-or-garden lefties David Aaronovitch is so arresting and insightful (at least to me) that I felt compelled to share his thoughts. Essentially, Aaronovitch points out what perhaps should be obvious: terrorists, or at least the current generation of Islamist ones, are not misguided champions of the wretched of the Earth or desperate purveyors of Stygian rage provoked by the West’s injustice (see anything by Noam Chomsky or Arundhati Roy) but simply psychopaths: self-pitying, with an epic sense of aggrieved entitlement, a fantasy of lost or plundered grandeur and an almost total lack of sympathy, let alone empathy, for their victims.
