It will never occur to such people that the kind of envy and resentments which they themselves promote incessantly may be behind the hatred from those who are lagging far behind the progress of the West and who can achieve significance only by destruction.

We cannot do anything about what is inside other people's heads -- except let it stay there and not get inside ours. But getting inside our heads, and especially inside the heads of our children, is the compelling urge of those who want to make the real world outside match their inner vision.

Why? Because theirs is a very self-flattering vision, which establishes them as morally one-up on the rest of us. Going against the common sense of ordinary people is the key to their self-exaltation, whether they are favoring criminals over victims, animals over humans, or other countries over America.

In a long war against terrorism, where we may have to both suffer and inflict terrible devastation, unity and resolve are the keys to enduring and prevailing. One-uppers are the last thing we need. They are enemies within, who can be the most dangerous kinds of enemies.

If they are so preoccupied with flattering their own vanity that they do not understand that their own survival is at stake, so be it. But the tragedy is that millions of other people's survival is also at stake.