Yes, we've heard that before. And in one obvious sense, it's absurd - no innocent deserves to be blown up in a subway train because of his government's policies - and in another obvious sense, it's common sense. Many terror groups are in some ways motivated by the acts of governments, especially in foreign policy. This latter fact - Bin Laden blamed US troops in Saudi Arabia and Jihadism gains recruits by torture in Iraq or the pulverization of Gaza - is essential to good counter-terrorism policy. Defuse, defang and destroy. The first two were sadly lacking under Bush-Cheney. Not so much under Obama. But look who's saying it now:
BENNETT: The Russians will be tougher than most countries on this stuff, right?
KRISTOL: Yeah, they’ve been pretty brutal in Chechnya and in some ways have brought this, I’ve got to say, on themselves. But, you know, the trouble is that people use legitimate grievances and of course become a fair number of Chechens went to Afghanistan to fight against us and the Chechnyans were treated just horribly, have been treated horribly by the Russians. But obviously that’s no excuse for being a suicide bomber.