Hmmm,no. The judgements being made here seem neither irrational nor uninformed.

Furthermore, most Americans have given this issue due diligence and are not speaking in haste.Westerners have had decades to review these acts,murderous terrorist acts on non-combatant civilians across the globe, for what they are. We have not been unfair, we have listened patiently and tempered our anger quite well in my estimation.

It is just the reverse-the prejudices are all theirs-the Muslims who plot and scheme against us on the flimsiest of excuses.

Reportedly

Mehanna grew up in a Boston suburb in well off family, PhD ? in pharmacology, like his father, so wasn’t looking, necessarily, at a bleak future. M. Atta was pursuing an advanced degree in city planning in Hamburg when he and other well off friends got together on planning 911. (Atta is said to have been very angry at effects of “modernity” in his native Cairo) Some of the guys who bombed the airport in Scotland and had placed the bomb filled cars outside the nightclubs in London were doctors.

A lot of the movers & shakers in radical jihad are not drawn in over the deprivation & poverty angle. Others, however, like the “muscle guys” (non leaders) on the 911 flights are.

Mehanna had, reportedly, traveled around for some time, Pakistan, Yemen, trying to be accepted into radical jihad, and had been unable to achieve that due to reasons like distrust of an American. Seems like a deeply dissatisfied guy who was desperate to be included in something larger than a life in America, pursuing pharmacology.

Although I would not, necessarily, argue the more educated proponents of violent jihad are personally motivated by ideas of Paradise, the poem attributed to/identified with Mehanna sings the praises of paradise, for what it’s worth.

I’ve read more than a few accounts of the young, the naive, the impressionable being drawn in (especially to suicide bombing) by older jihadists who constantly reinforce the joys and wonders of Paradise, recently in the Swat Valley in Pakistan where young men & boys were recruited for suicide missions. Peportedly (after the Pakistani army re-took the Swat) there is a program underway to “rehabilitate” the thinking of some of those children who were drawn in to believe in the joys awaiting them after their suicide mission.

I don’t think I’m too off base in maintaining that sexual repression in Muslim culture plays a role in attracting them.

(Imagine teaching a young man that blowing himself up is the highest form of service to his God and the wonders that await him after the deed. I wonder where “the UN” is in protesting these travesties foisted onto children, it seems like the worst form of exploitation.)

First, for your “Concerning the question(s) posed by Real Deal (8) above: “Is Islam actually a religion and protected by the 1st?” Yes it is. ”

Yes, Islam is a religion. But what exactly about the 1st Amendment relates to whether or not Islam is a religion? The first amendment sets out our right to free speech, it does not limit, or specify, the topics about which we may have free speech. So, what the heck is your point? Or is your “point” to serve someone through the arts of spindokery?

Second, “Remember where you live and the principles upon which this country was founded”

We sure do, and far better than you [for a small example thereof, see First above]. It is those principles, and a life that can be lived according to them, which is directly targeted by Islam Militant. Targeted, yes, because the principles of Islam drive the Believer to be Militant, to absolutely reject the principles upon which this country was founded. Do you forget the point that ours are the principles of the Kufr? Or is your “point” to serve someone through the arts of spindokery?

Third “and by whom”.

By the founders of this nation, who ranged from committed christians to committed deists to closet atheists. Your point is? Or is the point that you are someone’s agent in making use of your spindokery?

Fourth: “Maybe too deep a subject for this thread”.

Not at all. It is too important a subject to leave it the spin of dok goebbels

Fifth: “Christians and Jews (my own religion) have no terrorists in our closet of course”

Or Buddhist, or Hindu, or Zoroastrian, or a variety of Pagan, or Bahai, or……In the name of the religion? Far far fewer, per capita or in absolute numbers, than Islam. And, very much unlike Islam, those few that exist are on the far fringes of these religions. How far on the fringe? That I can, as I have, go the churches, the temples, the monasteries, the houses of worship, of these and never ever hear or read or see anything or anyone who teaches of the possibility of violence as part of the religion–never mind advocating its use. But the mosques I have attended, both sunni and shia, over 20 years now, in Asia, Canada, and this country, are sick with it, and openly so. Yes, you can do your bit for the Ummah, in Massachusetts, by purchasing a video of Nick Berg’s decaptitation. Yes, the sweet language of “Apes and Pigs” fills mosques in Houston. Yes, a nice, gentle, Sufi speaker in Taipei can cheerfully look forward to when the Last Jew is betrayed to his death by the very Tree he would hide behind.
If spindok was capable of honesty, he would acknowledge the difference between a religion were the iron fist lies at the Mean and other religions where the iron fist is multiple deviations away from that mean. But if spindok was honest he would not be a good spindok, would he?

Finally: “Nobody whom has killed wrongly in the name of G-d to justify their own sick pathology.”

That would be God, or is their a sick pathology that leaves you to omit vowels?

Well, poverty breeds terrorism!

Paradise is motivator, but not much of a motivator. Much higher motivator is perception that you are wronged.
****
You are wronged awfully.
Because you do not have job in your country, but there is more work in the West. So your not having a job in your country is a fault of imperialist Amrika.
Because others, less religious, have money but you do not have it. And you do not have money for marriage, for mahr [gift to future wife, necessary component of islamic marriage].
Because everybody is saying that your government is supported by Amrika and the West. And your government is corrupted so only people with “wasta” [connections] have jobs but you do not have it.
Because Qu’ran is saying that Islam should rule but umma is not ruling. The West is richer and perhaps you got job in the West (or you live in the West) but, hey, non-believers are corrupted, and immoral. And they kill Palestinians, and other muslims and you see it every day on al Jazeera and CNN.
It is wrong. You are wronged. Umma is wronged. It is unbearable.
*****
See? It all connects.