"When I think of the long and arduous work that goes into preparation for a medical career, of the investment that is made by some institution or institutions in their training, for nobody pays the full cost of medical training, and then to be willing to blow themselves and possibly hundreds of others up, I am utterly horrified. We are confronted by a nihilism so total that it is unreachable and unredeemable."

(an email commenter to Pamela of Atlas Shrugs' blog, part of an interesting post here).

Now, don't get me wrong, I can follow that thought and it's got some sense to it- but another occurs to me. What does it say about our jihadi enemies if they can take half a dozen doctors and direct them into blowing themselves up in non-medical spaces? Why didn't they wreak carnage through the obvious means of their medical facilities? If Dr Harold Shipman could, for pleasure apparently, carry off tens, what could deeply motivated doctors of death do? If you ask me, Shipman was the nadir of deepest nihilism. By contrast these guys wanted to raise a spectacle, and carried their motivating focus throughout the madness of their acts. That they ignored the special status of their careers in society was their idea of transcendent values, rather than a rejection of values per se.

Oh, and that they were inept (if they were inept, rather than simply unlucky) just goes to show that intelligent people may be quite impractical when outside their specialisms.

Update: related.