The search for meaning and terrorism

Published January 13, 2010

Missing in much of the 24-hour media attention paid to the attempt by a baby-faced 23-year-old Nigerian man to bomb a US airplane about to land at Detroit on Christmas day was what had driven this son of a wealthy Nigerian family to commit suicide and attempt to take so many people with him.

Internet postings purportedly written by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab indicate a desperately lonely young man fighting...