Defining The Enemy

Posted 10/7/2005

War On Terror: Understanding what motivates the enemy is essential 
to defeating it. The commander in chief took a major step in that
direction with last week's speech tying terrorism to "Islamic
radicalism."

Over and over, President Bush called the terrorists "Islamic
radicals." It was a stunning departure from his usual rhetoric
marginalizing the religious aspect of the long-term threat America
faces. In past speeches, Bush has described an otherwise amorphous
enemy of "evil-doers" motivated by a rather nebulous thing called
"evil ideology."

With Thursday's speech, he also abandoned his mantra that Islam is 
a "religion of peace." He called it a "noble faith,"
and left it at
that.

The president could have gone even further to explain what 
motivates the terrorists. He left the impression they are 
all heretics distorting the idea of jihad and defiling their 
scripture. He said they were "driven by ambition."

Yet self-immolation is the antithesis of earthly ambition. Suicide
bombers are inspired not by earthly gain, but by the Quranic promise
of endless carnal delights in paradise - rewards that are reserved 
for jihadists who "slay and are slain" battling the infidels in the 
name of Allah. No fewer than 26 chapters of the Quran deal with holy 
war and the rewards for martyrs, or shaheeds.

The unpleasant truth is, Muslim terrorists are getting all these
terrible ideas - from violent jihad to self-immolation to even the
beheadings we've seen in Pakistan and Iraq - straight out of the 
text of their holy book.

[... ...]

Full article at "Investors.com"
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20&issue=20051007

Cheers, Steve..

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