Uncovering The Details

This is something that conservatives seems to have a serious problem with - trying to find out what motivates someone.

A recent highlighted article over at Fox Nation was used to suggest that researching Shahzad's recent past is showing "sympathy" for a terrorist.

Not only is this completely and utterly preposterous, but reveals conservatives to be a purely reactionary lot. How are we to learn about our enemies if we don't study them? What about the FBI agents that study and profile serial killers, are they somehow showing sympathy for them?

It's as simple as this - if a house burns down or a person is involved in a car accident, you don't just say "the house burned" or that "the individual crossed the median into oncoming traffic", as this isn't the whole story. Why did the house burn down? Why did this person drive headlong into traffic? The story just doesn't end that way.

Conservatives prefer an alternate avenue - speculation and fear. We aren't meant to know how and why Shahzad left America to go to Pakistan. We aren't meant to know details about Shahzad's family and his life in America prior to his apparent conversion into a would-be terrorist. We are only meant to be afraid and let our imaginations run wild. This is how conservatives operate and how Fox"News" delivers content completely unrelated to any given story.

As for me, I want to know as much about Shahzad as I can. This man actually attempting to kill Americans. Thankfully he was so inept that his poorly constructed plot didn't succeed, but this doesn't lessen my desire to get as much information about him as possible.