How could believers, people who regard themselves as true Muslims, get on those planes, quoting the words of God delivered through the Prophet to themselves, knowing they were going to kill innocent people? They saw the other passengers on the plane. They could see the woman with her little daughter. They saw people making phone calls to their wives or their husbands. They knew who they were killing.

These terrible terrorism acts occur because of political situations and injustice in various parts of the world. The Middle East is heavy with injustice. After September 11,George W.Bush announced that he had always had a vision of a Palestinian state. Why didn't he tell us that before September 11, when it would have been a bit more impressive?

We love to think this fundamentalism and terrorism is all about poverty, and, of course, it has a connection. You can see that these people not only are poor but they have no outlets. These governments allow no opposition. So what do people do? They go to Islam. It's the only organizational institution where they can express their feelings. But it's not about poverty. I've never seen a single demonstration in which the people have come out with signs saying, "Please give us better roads. Please give us new prenatal clinics. Please give us a new sewage system."

And I think, in the end, that is the best definition of journalism I have heard; to challenge authority - all authority - especially so when governments and politicians take us to war, when they have decided that they will kill and others will die.

And history`s fingers never relax their grip, never leave us unmolested, can touch us even when we would never imagine their presence.

Even my landlord, who is a moderate Lebanese guy, says, "But bin Laden says what we think." These people believe that bin Laden is being targeted not because of the World Trade Center and Washington; they are not convinced by the evidence that has been produced. They believe he's being targeted because he tells the truth.

War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.