I was pleased to find that Nir Rosen, author of the New York Times feature "Iraq’s Jordanian Jihadis," took time out to reply to my post on his article, saying the following:

hi, as the author of this article, i understand why it would disturb jordanians, and regret that. although what i wrote was true, certainly saudi arabia is a far more dangerous exporter of both the jihadi salafi ideology and of the fighters themselves. unfortunately because of space limitations a very important point i was trying to make was left out. the point was not so much that jordan is responsible for this phenomenon, but that between the american occupation of iraq and the brutality associated with it, and the israeli occupation of palestine and the brutality associated with it, jordan is experiencing some of the blowback of being caught in the middle of the two most painful crises in the arab world. thats not to say that there are not internal problems, but the real danger is the reaction throughout the arab and muslim world to the US war on terror and the anger this has caused.

What he mentions here is an important point that — for some reason — was edited out of the original article. Anyway, instances such as this make me glad blogs provide interaction not only between bloggers and their readers but also between the original author of an article being discussed and the blogging community at large.