While I agree that terrorism is motivated by a complex set of reasons, there is unfortunately no way out of blaming a fanatic form of Islam for the recent Glasgow/London attempts. But this time, Dr. Cole you are prevaricating.

When three middle-class, educated Muslim men from India decide to bomb the UK, it is no longer about Iraq, Palestine or any other place. This is about religious fanaticism and yes, of the Islamic kind. This does not mean that other religions don't produce fanatics, but as of this moment, Islam seems to be the biggest factory for them. Just goes to show: democracy, civil rights, education, economics - none of these are enough to prevent Islamist (or any other kind of) fanatics.

As an Indian, I am FURIOUS that internal political bickering ensured that the extremist movement SIMI which seems to have nurtured these three monsters was not been banned an attempted by the BJP years ago (thanks to the country's "liberal, non-Hindu-fascist, apparently liberal" political agenda, backed heavily by US and UK btw!). I am sickened that these monsters took advantage of our country's limited resources (50,000 people appear for exams for 50 seats in India's top medical college!) in order to pursue their fanaticism. They "cracked" the system, got the clear road to success and then chose to piss it away. I am angry that so called "affirmative action" policies for Muslims gave these jerks those much coveted places in engineering and medical schools when they could have gone to far more dedicated (and nonkiller) professional. And I am revolted by how so called "liberal" media feeds false grievances by promoting this vision of Palestine/Iraq as cause for Islamism (Most Palestinans call themselves qamis-ul-Usman - a bloody rag that is waved to summon the faithful to battle but then discarded and would prefer to be left out of this international grievance logic). So lets not use them as a way of "understanding" fanatics.

Dr. Cole - I agree that Palestine/Iraq, occupation, imperialism, poverty are all causes in many instances. But the three monsters from India had none of those excuses. What they had was a hate-filled ideology combined by a false sense of grievance that has been stoked by far too many Western and Western-style leftists along with an inability to take responsibility!

The letters here are far more illuminating than the interview itself.

For Anahadwolves: so an attack on a US naval base justifies nuclear bombing Japanese civilian population? Do you realise that the same argument - Germans and Japanese "elected" their governments, and so were legitimate military targets - can (and has been) applied to US citizens? This is why jihadi groups think the Twin Towers were "legitimate" military targets. Or killing WSJ journos is okay because they are "combatants." Do you realise that according to your logic, ALL Americans are guilty of the war crimes committed by US troops in Abu Ghraib, Haditha etc even if you voted Democrat? Should the world then accept that citizens in the streets of New York are "legitimate military targets"? Such is American morality...

What is truly horrific here, are the letters by people whose parents served in WW2 and who claim that they "may not have been here" if US Army had gone in for a ground assault in Japan. Strange not a thought has gone for the children of those Hiroshima/Nagasaki civilians who DIDNT join the army or were children. But such is American hubris...(or should that be American exceptionalism?)

Finally, a word on the "it would have been worse if we went for ground assault" argument: most of us non-Americans hear the same logic being applied to Iran today. And more horrifically we realise that Iran will be nuked if an American president needs to save his presidency or have his party re-elected and all of it shall be accompanied by a great deal of flag waving and cheering. And then Americans will claim that it was "moral" because nuking civilians actually "saved lives, and isn't American nuclear warfare ample proof that no other country should own nuclear weapons." Such is American hypocrisy...