Why Do They Hate Us?

... is not a question being asked after Orlando the way it was after 9/11. In looking through the old articles from that time, here's an interesting one from Newsweek with the following bits.

Osama bin Laden has an answer--religion. For him and his followers, this is a holy war between Islam and the Western world. Most Muslims disagree...But bin Laden and his followers are not an isolated cult like Aum Shinrikyo or the Branch Davidians or demented loners like Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber. They come out of a culture that reinforces their hostility, distrust and hatred of the West--and of America in particular. This culture does not condone terrorism but fuels the fanaticism that is at its heart. To say that Al Qaeda is a fringe group may be reassuring, but it is false...This awkward reality has led some in the West to dust off old essays and older prejudices predicting a "clash of civilizations" between the West and Islam.

This is from a blandly mainstream publication that these days would never publish such an article.

Elsewhere, the folks who blamed 9/11 on American cultural imperialism aren't doing the same thing for Orlando. While they argued that Coca-Cola for sale in the Middle East was enough to drive jihadists to violence, jamming gay marriage down our throats here in the US apparently was not.

To clarify my thoughts: The killer was a nut, motivated by Islam. That he was "triggered" by seeing gays express affection in public wasn't the fault of the gays, but the byproduct of mixing somewhat-incompatible cultures together.