Not long ago, Faisal Shahzad had a pretty enviable life: He became an American citizen after emigrating from Pakistan, where he came from a wealthy family. He earned an MBA. He had a well-educated wife and two kids and owned a house in a middle-class Connecticut suburb.
In the past couple of years, though, his life seemed to unravel: He left a job at a global marketing firm he'd held for three years, lost his home to foreclosure and moved into an apartment in an impoverished neighborhood in Bridgeport. And last weekend, authorities say, he drove an SUV loaded with explosives into Times Square intent on blowing it up.
But it misses the point to argue that hard luck caused him to try to commit mass murder. Lots of people fall on bad luck. That does not cause violence.
The point is that Islamo-fascism gave Shahzdad a way to redeem a failed life in a blaze of glory and the blood of Americans. And he took it. Only his mistakes prevented him from killing in the name of his religion.
