I am increasingly wondering  why we are in Afghanistan. I want us to be in Afghanistan winning the good war: part of it is wanting us to kick somebody’s ass over 9-11, but then I wonder, why Afghanistan?

Last week, on the Bill Maher show, there was an amazing round of conversation about what makes a terrorist.Bill Maher started off by saying that a young man who was just arrested as a terrorist was living an American life. “He doesn’t hate America, he loves America and feels guilty.” By day the terrorists love all the taboo parts of America, getting a beer, going to a titty bar, and then out of guilt, they plot to blow something up.

Janeane Garofalo said that it was more than just about sex and guilt, it was about our foreign policy decisions.

Richard Dawkins said it is about religion. That Islam promotes going after non-believers. Then Thomas Friedman said that it was about the disparity between what they thought Islam was and the reality of their life. The terrorists thought of Islam as religion 3.0 – Christianity was religion 2.0, Judaism 1.0 and Hinduism 0.0 – but life under Islam didn’t measure up. Their religion was better but their life was worse and they hate their own governments for it.

Finally Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur, who represents a huge Muslim population, after saying that her constituents were good citizens and many were in the military protecting America, said that it was disenfranchised individuals who were alienated from society.

It seems to me that each of them is right and all of them are right. Terrorists are increasingly home grown and we are not going to solve the problem by being in Afghanistan.