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Suicidal violence is not the exclusive property of the Muslim world. Suicide bombings were a tactic of nationalist struggles in 19th-century Europe and Russia, the far east during the second world war and the Vietnam war, and in modern Sri Lanka.

It may be politically incorrect to say, but it is nevertheless true that a terrorist today is exponentially more likely to be a Muslim than a Christian.

The weapon of suicide bombing is so desperate that you aren't even left with the possibility of taking revenge or punishing anyone; the terrorist is killed along with his victims, his blood mixing with theirs.

I pointed out that the Atlanta Olympic bomber - as well as Timothy McVeigh and the people who protest against gay rights at military funerals - are Christians but we journalists don't identify them by their religion.

We fully support the strikes against terrorist targets, not against the country, not against the culture, not against a religion, but against an enemy of them all.

There have been bombings by extremists. They are not representatives of Islam. They're not representative of the vast majority of people who love this country, but nonetheless, they exist.

Being religious is quintessentially American.

Most people I know are not hard-core religious people. They are what I would call 'lightly religious.' So I don't buy the notion that we can't laugh about religion in America.

The proper reply to right wing religiosity is not to insist that politics and religion don't mix. This is the stock response of the left.

The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong - and no argument or excuse, no matter how deeply believed, can ever make it right. No religion on earth condones the killing of innocent people; no faith tradition tolerates the random killing of our brothers and sisters on this earth.