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Jewish World Review June 28, 2002 / 18 Tamuz, 5762

Diana West

Diana West
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A war on terror or Islamists?

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Ted Turner may be a blinkered mess when it comes to foreign affairs, and CNN may be apologizing all over itself for paying more attention to the families of suicide bombers than to the families of their victims, but there's at least one man on the CNN team who's examining world events with clear eyes and open ears. We refer to Lou Dobbs of "Moneyline," who has been conducting a worthy seminar of sorts this month on a topic of urgent, if neglected, interest: the identity of our enemy.

As Mr. Dobbs has pointed out, the "war on terror" -- the term of government choice for the military moves and protective policies initiated since Sept. 11 -- is not a war on "terror" at all. Anyone who ponders the phrase long enough to scratch his head realizes that "terror" isn't an enemy. Terror is a feeling. As Mr. Dobbs put it, terror is "what the enemy wants to achieve." Describing our efforts in terms of an emotional abstraction not only obscures the face of our adversary, but also the nature of our mission.

"The enemy in this war are radical Islamists who argue that all non-believers in their faith must be killed," Mr. Dobbs explained in early June. "It is not a war against Muslims, Islam or Islamics. It is a war against Islamists and all who support them; and if ever there was a time for clarity, it is now." Announcing his decision to substitute the phrase "war against Islamists" for "war on terror," Mr. Dobbs has used successive broadcasts to subject the terminology to an urgently needed debate, one that is unique in the culture at large.

Some commentators have been more illuminating than others. Former Defense Secretary William Cohen both approved and disapproved of identifying the "Islamist" enemy. (Noting that the terminology was "correct," he warned, "in seeking to add clarity and simplicity, it may add more confusion.") Niwad Awad, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, opposed Mr. Dobb's efforts because, as Mr. Awad rather incredibly put it, he didn't want "to drag Islam into a war that has nothing to do with Islam." (Maybe he should spread the word to the Islamist terror networks.)

Meanwhile, Professor Fawaz Gerges, a student of Islamist-Western relations, has advocated defining the adversary as "radical" Islamists. Mr. Dobbs agreed. So did American University Professor Mary Jane Deeb, who explained that while the goal of "radical Islamists" and "Islamists" is the same -- to establish a theocracy based on sharia, or Islamic law -- "radical Islamists believe that they can achieve this by violence, and other Islamists believe they can achieve this through other means."

The Middle East Forum's Daniel Pipes didn't much quibble with describing the enemy as "radical" Islamists, but he didn't take much comfort in the distinction his co-panelists were making, either. Defining Islamism, "radical" or not, as a totalitarian movement to transform "personal faith into a radical utopian ideology," Mr. Pipes made the case that all Islamism is extremist. Distinguishing between "mainstream Islamists and fringe ones," he added, is like "making a distinction between mainstream Nazis and fringe Nazis." As he put it, "They're all gunning for the same totalitarian goals, and which methods they're using at this moment I don't consider very important at all."

Mr. Pipes went on to place Islamism in a historical context. "I think what Nazism or fascism was to the World War II, and Marxist-Leninism was to the Cold War, militant Islam is to this war. It is the ideology that lurks behind the states, the organizations, the individuals. All the people who are fighting us now are devoted, broadly speaking, to a single set of ideas. These are ideas which are extremely inimical to our own, and they are very aggressive. They want to impose their ideas on us through violent means or peaceful means."

The "war on terror" sounds more inadequately vague than ever next to the fight against totalitarian Islamism. Mr. Dobbs is to be commended for initiating this crucial discussion in the media about meaning and purpose, and for doing his bit to take the "terror" out of our struggle.

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JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

Up

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06/21/02: Up front and personal with Atta
06/18/02: Terrorism at the United Nations
06/11/02: Who's policing the INS?
06/07/02: Spa Gitmo
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05/19/02: Hate U.
05/07/02: Western self-loathing numbs us to violence
05/03/02: Pioneering television
05/01/02: Western self-loathing numbs us to violence
04/29/02: It's the misconduct, stupid
04/24/02: Medal of diss-honor
04/17/02: Holy sanctuary or terrorist shield?
04/12/02: Egyptian clerics solicit martyrs for murder
04/09/02: Defining terrorism down
04/05/02: The Wilder life
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03/31/02: Speeding to conclusions
03/25/02: Hard to remove blood (libel) stains
03/21/02: The tale of Nixon's tapes --- again
03/19/02: The Big Lie lives on
03/15/02: The tunnel vision of '9/11'
03/13/02: The American Auschwitz?
03/08/02: Hating the indoctrination of hate
03/05/02: Clinton and Enron: Old friends
03/01/02: Pickering doesn't polarize, the process does
02/26/02: Destiny's prefabricated child
02/22/02: The White House heist
02/20/02: Making the grade
02/11/02: Studying student visas
02/06/02: Understanding arrogance
02/04/02: The professor's war
01/29/02: Disconnected dialogue
01/23/02: Anti-Indiscrimination
01/18/02: How much is enough?
01/15/02: Oh brothers, where art thou?
01/10/02: Air on the side of caution
01/04/02: Blacks seeing red at Harvard
01/02/02: Clinton's campaign continues
12/26/01: A tale of two exhibitions
12/24/01: Taliban Idyll
12/19/01: Right is right
12/17/01: Hillary strikes out
12/13/01: Lost files, lost presidency
12/10/01: Revolutionaries never grow up
12/05/01: Immigration reform talk is not just for 'haters' anymore
12/03/01: A new symbol of justice
11/30/01: Beyond morality
11/26/01: Can't keep a good man down
11/20/01: Tough talk at the United Nations
11/19/01: Hollywood's other battle
11/14/01: What's the matter with Sara Jane?
11/09/01: A beef with bin Laden's Beef Noodles
11/07/01: Facing up to the FBI's past mistakes
11/02/01: A school that teaches patriots to shutup
10/30/01: The gap between Islam and peace
10/26/01: The ties that bind (and gag)
10/24/01: This war is more than Afghanistan
10/22/01: The fatuous fatwa
10/19/01: Left out
10/16/01: Whose definition of terrorism?
10/11/01: Post-stress disorder
10/08/01: How the West has won
10/01/01: Good, bad or ... diplomacy
09/28/01: Drawing a line in stone
09/21/01: Prejudice or prudence?
09/14/01: When our dead will finally rest in hallowed ground
09/07/01: We want our #$%^&*() audience back!
08/24/01: The transformation from Green Mountain State to Green Activist State is all but complete
08/17/01: Enlightenment at Yale
08/10/01: From oppressors to victims, a metamorphosis
08/03/01: Opening the dormitory door: College romance in the New Century
08/01/01: How-To Hackdom: The dubious art of writing books about writing books
07/20/01: Hemming about Hemmings
07/13/01: Justice has not been served in the Loiuma police brutality case
06/22/01: When PC parades are too 'mainstream'
06/22/01: When "viewpoint discrimination" in our schools was not nearly so gnarly a notion
06/15/01: Lieberman flaunts mantle of perpetual aggrievement
06/07/01: Is graciousness the culprit?
06/01/01: The bright side of the Jeffords defection
05/29/01: Campus liberals should be more careful
05/18/01: 'Honest Bill' Clinton and other Ratheresian Logic
05/11/01: Dodging balls, Bugs, and 'brilliance'
05/04/01: Foot in mouth disease and little lost Tories
04/20/01:The last classic Clinton cover-up
04/20/01: D-Day, Schmee-Day
04/06/01: For heaven's sake, a little decency!
03/30/01: The sweet sound of slamming doors and clucking feminists
03/23/01: America's magazines and the 'ick-factor'
03/09/01: Felony neglect
03/02/01: Who's sorry now?
02/23/01: 'Ecumenical niceness' and other latter-day American gifts to the world
02/16/01: Elton and Eminem: Royal dirge-icist meets violent fantasist
02/12/01: If only ...

© 2001, Diana West