As the Christmas holiday approached, it was time to talk about terrorism. I spent part of a December afternoon in a sterile conference room symbolic of strategic thought in Washington ("Avoid the virus of originality!&quot. Following a discussion of Middle Eastern Islam's power to generate suicide bombers, a miffed senior official challenged the notion that religion had anything whatsoever to do with the phenomenon.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/02/1813708