On your main topic: Jihadism seems to me to be a rather rare phenomenon among American Muslims. Doubtlessly, there is a small percentage of American Muslims who have sympathy with the violent cause promoted by al Qaeda and the like. But most of the jihadi plots uncovered in America to date seem half-baked to me and often the product of minds so clearly unstable for other reasons that it is hard see these events as any kind of serious, sustained, or organized threat. Interestingly, many of the "Muslims" who launch these plots appear to be recent converts, probably already violent, who are seduced by the rhetoric of jihadism and convert to Islam merely to give an ideological cover to their psychopathic desires. For those looking for a way to make a desire for violence appear heroic, jihadism may play a similar role to the role socialism sometimes played in the 1960s and earlier. Neither Islam nor socialism are themselves bad, but Islam today unfortunately is at times co-opted by the violent in the same way that socialist ideas were at times co-opted by the violent during prior decades. Further, much as in the fifties and sixties there were socialist nations and revolutionaries that were antagonistic to the US, so today we see similarly antagonistic nations and groups who adopt extremist concepts of Islam. These phenomena create an appearance that Islam is a threat, much as socialism appeared in many minds to be a threat in the 50s and 60s. The reality, though, is that Islam itself is benign as was socialism. Our duty, I think, in times like these is to create distinctions between the ideas, which may themselves be wholly good, and those who co-opt them to justify their desire for violence.

As far as Hasan goes, he seems to be a psychopath first (not unlike many other loners who "go postal") whose apparent interest in jihadi ideas may have been a symptom of his psychosis more than a cause.

I can't decide if this is good or bad. Maybe if we are so unfit to go to war, we'll try investing our time and resources into something more productive for a change?

"The surrounding Muslim world consists of even more extreme ethnocracies and theocracies....and Jews lived for 2000 years in such societies and have had enough of it. "

The interesting thing, of course, is that most Jews today are Ashkenazi, which means the ancestors of most Jews spent the last 2000 years (or so) in Christian countries, not Muslim. Whether those Christian countries were extreme ethnocracies or theocracies is maybe debatable, but whatever they were, they were not particularly tolerant of or kind to Jews. For most of the past 1300 or 1400 years since Islam arose, Muslim societies have been considerably friendlier to Jews than have Christian societies. This is not to say that Jews were treated as equals by Muslims, but Jews were not persecuted to nearly the same extent by Muslims as they were by Christians. The intensified dislike of Jews now exhibited in the Muslim world is a recent phenomenon that has arisen primarily as reaction to Zionism. To fully understand the Muslim reaction to Zionism, one must recognize that Zionism isn't merely a Jewish phenomenon, but also a European one. Over many centuries, there has been a slow but steady shift in the balance of power from the Middle East to Europe, which reached its climax with British colonialism after the fall of the Ottomans. The creation of a Jewish state on land owned and populated mostly by Muslims was maybe the last and greatest insult the British colonialists could hurl at the Muslim world. It showed that even the group of Europeans most despised by the majority of Europeans--the Jews--were more important in the eyes of Europe than the Muslims. With the creation of Israel, the rights of Jews--so disregarded in Europe itself--were placed by the Europeans above the rights of Muslims. The creation of Israel, therefore, was and continues to be symbolic to Muslims of the low regard in which Europe holds them. While bigotry directed at Jews certainly plays into the Muslim dislike of Israel, Europe's disrespect for Muslims demonstrated by Europe's placement of Jewish rights and interests above Muslim rights and interests is at least an equal factor in stoking Muslim hatred and resentment towards Israel.

(Sorry, rushed at the end, got to go to work!)

Instead, what I believe you and Brooks are both doing is not standing firmly against the troublesome tide, but rather flowing along with it by giving some credence to the idea that there is a "community" that needs to "examine" itself and in some way address the deeds of an individual whose actions are purely his own. I find this unhelpful in the current situation and possibly even immoral.