I cannot imagine a context that would some day, in some manner, make the monstrous crime of September 11 an understandable or comprehensible political act

Each murder is one too many.

I cannot imagine a context that would some day, in some manner, make the monstrous crime of September 11 an understandable or comprehensible political act

The misery in war-torn Afghanistan is reminiscent of images from the Thirty Years' War.

Historically, terrorism falls in a category different from crimes that concern a criminal court judge.

Osama bin Laden, the person, more likely serves the function of a stand-in. Compare the new terrorists with partisans or conventional terrorists in Israel. These people often fight in a decentralized manner in small, autonomous units, too.

Global terrorism is extreme both in its lack of realistic goals and in its cynical exploitation of the vulnerability of complex systems.