Instead they point to all sorts of perceived grievances de jour, from American troops once stationed in the "land of the holy shrines" to failure to sign Kyoto, as if America singularly had done something to earn al Qaeda's attacks.

In a much quoted sneer, bin Laden—in his infamous preelection October 2004 infomerical—mocked that notion of hating us for who we are.

So he posed the rhetorical question (sometimes quoted approvingly in the West) "Why did we not attack Sweden?" His point, I gather,  was that Sweden wasn't helping Israel or in Iraq, and its free culture per se thus warranted no Islamic response.

But wait. Consider the ongoing Islamic rage and threats over the Swedish cartoons—following the Danish cartoon furor. So now we can answer Terrorist Rex's silly question. In fact, bin Laden, you do hate the freedom of the Scandinavians. And the reason so far why you haven't yet done even more about it is only the relative smallness of such countries that puts them for the time being way down on your target list.

Of course, with enough Danish or Swedish cartoons, operas, documentaries, church decrees,etc. that could all change very quickly.