The tragedy of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent conceptualizing of the war on terrorism have presented a very difficult problem to those responsible for framing the strategy. The basic problem has been one of defining the enemy. After four years, this problem still eludes a clear definition although the national leadership has been carefully moving toward a more definitive description.
The basic obstacle has been one of clearly describing the enemy without seeming to single out the world’s second largest religion, Islam, as the cause or facilitator of this terrorism. To differentiate the radical forms of Islam from the mainstream Islamic community, the word “Islamism” was coined to describe an ideological movement using Islam as the vehicle to power. Others term it political Islam, while some journalists and media types still refer to it as Muslim fundamentalism. In actuality there is a wide gap between the fundamentalists and Islamists...
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