Mr. Hoffman produced a fine article. He writes very well and covered three of the main points, money from rich Gulf Arabs, safe haven and sanctuary and social media. The ironic thing about all that to me is all three can be looked at as being the result of Western sufferance.

For example, Twitter knows full well their business is being used to promote and strengthen people who would destroy them and their loved ones but allow it to continue because they don't want to look bad. The rich Gulf Arabs are rich because the West gives them money for oil that could not be produced, and couldn't have been produced, without Western tech and know how. The House of Saud didn't get rich because they were outstanding petroleum engineers. And to cite one example, AQ central has existed because the Pak Army/ISI has allowed them sanctuary for many years and we never moved to stop that. We never even tried.

Historians of the future will puzzle over this. How could we have abided the strengthening and growth of those who would destroy us for so long when so many sources of their strength were...us?