What do the nineteen 9/11 hijackers have in common with the bombers of the Bali nightclub and Daniel Pearl's murderers? For that matter, what do they share with organizations such as Hizbullah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad? With such groups under arrest as the Detroit Four, the Lackawanna Six, and the Portland Seven? Or with Richard Reid (the shoe bomber), John Walker Lindh (Marin County's contribution to the Taliban), and Sami Al-Arian (the Florida computer scientist indicted for materially supporting a terrorist organization)?
They all share three features: terrorism as a tactic for waging war, militant Islam as an ideology for ordering society, and Islam as a personal faith. With equal accuracy, they can be depicted as either terrorists, Islamists, or Muslims. Which of these three categories best explains the source of the threat facing the civilized world?
Speaking on behalf of the U.S. government, President George W. Bush has categorically rejected the Islamic faith as the source of the threat ("Islam is a religion of peace"). It's hard to argue with that assessment, especially when some of the victims are Muslims, notably the ones at the mosque in Najaf, Iraq in August 2003.
That leaves either terrorism or militant Islam as the cause. And while Bush spoke out on 9/11 itself and many times since about a "war against terrorism," this is unconvincing, for terrorism is a means, not an end, an identity, an ideology, or a goal.
Islamism remains. That is the true commonality. (April 8, 2004)
Related Topics: Radical Islam, US policy
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