[lostmsu]

> Missing in media reports about these things is the connection between action (our foreign military mis-adventures) and reaction (terrorist attacks).

Ha! That is probably because there's comparatively less correlation between terrorist attacks and foreign politics, than there's between terrorist attacks and attacker's religion. In case you are not aware, various islamic groups perform terrorist attacks in Philippines (look up recent news), India and Russia, the former two being 100% internal affairs.

[finid]

And in virtually all those cases, there's a link to the target's actions against something the terrorists hold dear.

Terrorist activity in India? Look to Kashmir.

In Russia? The Russians fought their own war on terrorism before we went into Afghanistan. In some ways going into Afghanistan diverted fighters streaming into Chechnya to fight the Russian army to Afghanistan. We gave them a target they hated more than they hated the Russians. From reports, many of the best fighters on the side of ISIS are Chechens.

The Russians, by the way, are still fighting terrorists.

And whether these wars are "internal affairs" or not is immaterial.

[lostmsu]

> And in virtually all those cases, there's a link to the target's actions against something the terrorists hold dear.

If by 'something the terrorists hold dear' you mean power and prevalence of islam, I absolutely agree! When Chechnya de-facto separated from Russia in 1990s, they run multiple ethnic cleansings: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AD%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%87... (no translation to English unfortunately).

It looks like something similar is happening right now in the Philippines.

[finid]

Power? Doubtful. Prevalence of Islam? Maybe.

However, just watching another person destroy your homeland can tick most people off.