Though uncomfortable and ominous, reality must be faced. Six years after Sept. 11, nine years removed from the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, and fourteen years since the first attack on the World Trade Center, the Western world is fighting a religious war.
While this battlefield is not ours by design, it is nevertheless the one that our enemies have chosen. Call them Islamofascists, radical Islamists, or simply terrorists. Regardless of the label, the forces threatening civilization from New York to Baghdad are clear in their cause: jihad.
A defense of Islam often offered-up by the politically correct and easily offended is an indictment of Christian violence during the Crusades. Yet, this does little to disprove the relationship between contemporary Islam and jihadi violence. Rather, it draws an illuminating parallel. Just as the atrocities of the Crusades reflected an epoch of Christianity marked by exclusionary rhetoric, fundamentalism and messianic terror, so too does the bloodlust of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Fatah-al-Islam and others speak to extremist undercurrents entrenched in present-day Islamic thought.
It is true that implicating Islam's role in global terrorism walks a fine line between legitimate analysis and hollow generalization. Yet, this does not disallow the line's existence. Moreover, the Koran's inherent peacefulness does not render Islam immune to the existential tensions between moderation and extremism that Christianity and Judaism have largely resolved.
The line of demarcation separating moderate Muslims from the extremists is fading into obscurity. While overwhelming majorities reject al-Qaeda on face, the fundamentalism that demonizes the West and blames everything "un-Islamic" for Muslim suffering continues to resonate with increasingly large numbers.
It is ultimately this ideology - a volatile mix of religious politics and militarized self-pity - that condemns apostates to death, permits the stoning of "adulterous" women, and stifles already stagnant societies. It is this mentality that responds to the literature of Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali with death threats, answers the satire of Dutch cartoonists with violent protests and death threats, and silences the creativity of Theo van Gogh with murder.
And, it is this categorically detestable strain of thought that must be overcome if the West intends to safeguard a more humane notion of civilization.
Yet, killing and capturing terrorists is not a prescription for victory. We must fight the deeper fight, be brave enough to identify the Salafi Islam pathogen that is infecting a religion at large, and pursue the enemy while staying mindful of Tawfik Hamid's (former member of Jemaah Islamiyah) words, "Terrorism is only a manifestation of a disease, not the disease itself."
At the strategic level, the implications of the Islam-terrorism dynamic are clear. In fighting an enemy to whom death is a perk, American retaliation is welcomed and so military strength and tactical deterrence are of limited use. Furthermore, trying to interpret the terrorism of al-Qaeda or its extremist counterparts through lenses of political or secular logic is a fool's errand. To do so assumes that Islamist behavior can be altered via concessions and compromise.
The fact is that Islamist terror is neither political nor a strategy for weakening the West. Rather, the theatrics of Sept. 11 and similar atrocities are merely cogs in the machine of "inevitable" Islamic revolution. They are intended to "awaken" the Muslim world to the vulnerable underbelly of the Great Satan and set in motion the holy war that the Salafists fundamentally crave.
In the words of al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, "The jihad movement must make room for the Muslim nation to participate with it for the sake of empowerment ... The Muslim nation will not participate with the jihad movement unless the slogans of the mujahidin are understood by the masses." In the simplest of terms, the savagery of terrorism is a slap in the face to the West and the Muslim community alike. For one, it is a precursor to God's vengeance; for the other, it is a call to arms.
At the popular level, Salafization of the Muslim world does not require any abstract discussion. The most recent data is self-explanatory. In four ethnically and culturally diverse Islamic countries - Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan and Indonesia - WorldPublicOpinion.org (a website produced by the highly reputable Program on International Policy Attitudes and the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies) reported the following trends in Muslim thought: on average, 79 percent of respondents think it is likely the United States is trying to weaken and divide Islam, 70 percent at least somewhat agree that Sharia law should be strictly applied in every Islamic country, 27 percent do not feel that groups using violence against civilians violate the principles of Islam (Pakistan not included), 70 percent support standing up to America and affirming the dignity of the Islamic people, and 64 percent believe that the U.S. intends to spread Christianity in their regions.
Most disturbingly, 20 percent consider it possible to justify suicide attacks on civilians. Together, the combined Muslim populations of the four countries in question total roughly 460 million people.
Thus, throughout the Muslim world, the prevalence of a dangerous ideology steeped in popular Islam is both clear and jarring. Moreover, Muslim accusations against the United States and the West do not speak to reality, history or legitimate fear. Instead, almost tragically, they echo the paranoid delusions of a conspiracy theorist consumed by worst-case scenarios and unable to decipher real from fake, imagined from experienced.
This is the disconnect that has come to define the turbulence of contemporary Islam. And, it is in this space between reality and fantasy that sympathetic audiences, willing recruits, and active consumers of anti-Western vitriol sustain Islamist terrorism. While it will have to be Muslims who resolve the crisis within, we can help. The first step, as it always is with destructive pathologies, is admitting the problem exists.
Matthew Ladner is a junior majoring in international relations.
