Right idea, wrong terminology

Submitted by Alan Gold (Australia), Aug 14, 2006 at 19:19

Sorry, Daniel, but having studied this issue at some length since the USS Cole and the assaults on the US Embassies, and having had all my fears confirmed by September 11, and the other terrorist outrages in London, Bali, and Madrid, I continue to use the term 'Islamic Terrorists.'

Using the terms 'fascist' or 'radical' tends to annoint these terrorists with an ideology and status they simply don't merit. They are deracinated killers seeking a reason to hate and kill, rather than bog-standard fascists of the Nazi variety who were normal Germans until they were suddenly imbued by Hitler with a reason to become Fascists. To call them 'radicals' makes them sound like a far-right or far-left splinter group from an orthodox political party. These Islamic terrorists, especially those from Britain and Indonesia, would have joined up to any extreme group because of their rootlessness and lack of self. The Islamist teachers in the Mosques and Madrassas they attended merely gave them an outlet and an identity for their desire to kill.

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