Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the member and count him as a friend, but I think that his remarks were very much based on folly, to continue to make reference, as his colleagues have done throughout the day, to the nebulous notion of root causes. For most Liberals, under the surface of every criminal lies a victim. Perhaps Osama bin Laden and his followers are somehow victims of the international system of liberal capitalism or something. I am not sure what it is. Perhaps the member could identify what he thinks are the root causes.
The member talked about poverty and economic inequity. The people who perpetrated these acts came from some of the wealthiest countries in the world, from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, from middle class, well educated families in Egypt. Most of it is apparently bankrolled by a billionaire, and perhaps by billionaires such as Saddam Hussein who control states. This is not some romantic revolt of the proletariat in the third world against the excesses of liberal democratic capitalism. Let us identify what it is.
I have a lot of respect for the member. We do not need to talk in nebulous terms. We can talk in specific terms about the cancer of radical militant Islamism; not Islam, not Muslims, but Islamism, which has three objectives. I would ask the member to comment on it. The three objectives are the destruction of Israel, the death of America, and the overthrow of Arab regimes in countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. That is what motivates them, not some nebulous concept of economic equity. Can the member not grasp that? And once he grasps it, does he not agree that there is really only one approach to address this, and that is with a resolute firmness and not by negotiating with people who seek the destruction of Israel and western civilization?