He’s probably right but perhaps there’s a distinction without a difference
here. Clearly there would be no suicide bombers if there were no grievance
(i.e. merely worshipping Allah is not a reason for suicide bombing), but it
is noteworthy that suicide was not the tactic of the IRA, nor have there
been any suiciders from among the Christian Palestinians / Lebanese who are
in the identical politico-geographic situation.

I agree with your overall thrust, in particular that defining the message
here is just a much the US’s doing as the terrorists’. I said from day one
that our simple-minded demonization of them is wrong on every count, and I
think it’s clear that it leads to logically impossible dead ends like the
Bush position on Iraq. But I don’t think you do anything to clarify how we
*should* understand them.

* You suicide because you have nothing to lose, because living is worse, or
because one small step for a man is a giant leap for mankind.

* Suicide is not actually the interesting question, because the “terrorists”
are just the tip of a larger supporting thought movement.

* The thought movement in question is transformative, by which I mean that
its goals (e.g. Caliphate) are unattainable by any logical move, so ka-boom
is the only way – shake things up and see if they fall in a better config

* You might want to read this:

http://www.amazon.com/What-Terrorists-Want-Understanding-Containing/dp/1400064813 

AF