He raises a fundamentally interesting and important point though

I really have found it shocking, genuinely shocking, that normal young men from decent families, with education, prospects, and normal interests and hobbies could have done something like this.

I was remembering today that Cherie Blair said a few years ago that she could see where suicide bombers were coming from in Israel, because young Palestinian men had been given such bad treatment by the Israelis that they were full of hatred and despair, had nothing to hope for, and so were prepared to act like that. I understood what she was saying.

But these guys weren't like that. They had education, they had prospects and chances, their parents had done well here as immigrants. I know this sounds stupid but more than anything else it's the fact that some of them were keen cricketers, playing for local sides, that has really driven home to me how NORMAL these guys were. They wore the clothes that we would wear (well, that you youngsters would wear), they went to the pub, they liked sport. To external appearances they were not (or so all their friends have said so far) radical loonies.

What happened to them to make them do something so awful?

What can we do as a society to stop that happening again?

Posted By: Old Git, Jul 14, 12:10:24