Maybe it's not just the "mad mullahs."

Thughtful commentary on internal problems as possible source of terror:

Apparently it is all the fault of those ruthless al-Qaeda recruiters mentioned in the Whitehall document, or those fundamentalist mosques in south London, Paris, Hamburg and elsewhere that are turning our young Muslim men into crazed lunatics. If that is the case, then why is it happening now? There have long been mad mullahs in Western cities but they were generally avoided by most sensible young people, and nihilist terrorism, certainly in the West, has only become a problem over the past five to 10 years. Blaming the recruiters is the easy way out. The finger is pointed at fanatical individuals, and the solution is said to lie in reining these individuals in. The denial about al-Qaeda being a Western phenomenon in the first place has given way to a denial about the deep problems in a Western society that can give rise to something like al-Qaeda.

. . . Such terrorism, it seems, is less a consequence of far-away fanaticism infiltrating the West, but rather suggests a failure on the part of mainstream institutions in the West to cohere society or to provide individuals with any meaningful sense of identity.

There is a growing sense of atomisation and alienation in the West, not only among immigrants but across society. . . . Could it be that the new terrorism, which we consider so awful and alien, is in fact a product of the same corrosive forces that impact on the rest of us?

British-born bombers: not so shocking. From 9/11 to 7/7, nihilistic terror has its origins in the West. By Brendan O'Neill, Spiked, 7/13/05.

See also Creating the enemy. How a risk-averse West has inflamed the terrorism it fears. By Brendan O'Neill, 7/18/05.