It is not an excuse if the guy is ready to throw himself and an airplane into a building for it. That means the guy is pretty sincere. The word you are looking for is motive.
The fact that you do not find their motives "reasonable" intrigues me. Is it their methods you disagree with, or their grievances?
If you think their grievances are not legitimate, does it change when you substitute "gold rush" for "oil rush" and "red skin" for "rag head"?
(By the way I'm not thrilled about getting bombed. I almost lost a friend in Boston.)
> It is not an excuse if the guy is ready to throw himself and an airplane into a building for it. That means the guy is pretty sincere. The word you are looking for is motive.
The human unconscious is a mysterious place.
> The fact that you do not find their motives "reasonable" intrigues me. Is it their methods you disagree with, or their grievances?
I disagree with deliberately targeting civilians. I also think the worldview of these perpetrators is rather distant from reality.
> If you think their grievances are not legitimate, does it change when you substitute "gold rush" for "oil rush" and "red skin" for "rag head"?
(c) you can only condemn the violence if you would not do the same thing in their place.
To me, that means you should be able to sell them a peaceful method as being more effective than jihad. Well, we have a historical record.
The peaceful, liberal, pro-democratic reformers in the middle east seem to have gotten defeated and tortured by the CIA and their local satraps. Like what happened to my family.
On the other hand Jihad seems to be winning in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and so on.
The relative I was thinking of was an activist for constitutional democracy and against absolute monarchy. Don't know what happened to him in prison; he doesn't talk about it.
The fact that you do not find their motives "reasonable" intrigues me. Is it their methods you disagree with, or their grievances?
If you think their grievances are not legitimate, does it change when you substitute "gold rush" for "oil rush" and "red skin" for "rag head"?
(By the way I'm not thrilled about getting bombed. I almost lost a friend in Boston.)