Terrorism and the Global Clash of Civilizations
Prof. Louis Rene Beres
01 October 2001 

Terrorism, to be sure, is America´s overriding problem for the 
immediate future. Yet terrorism is not really our underlying 
problem. It is, rather, the palpably barbarous tactic of a 
methodically planned and determinedly apocalyptic war. Directed 
initially against Israel and the United States, this fevered 
attack will soon spread – perhaps uncontrollably - to large 
cities in Europe and possibly even to various parts of Asia. 

This war is a sustained and forseeably catastrophic Arab/Islamic 
assault against the West, a civilizational struggle in which a 
resurgent medievalism now seeks to bring fear, paralysis and 
death to "unbelievers." It goes without saying that an 
overwhelming number of Muslims throughout the world are 
uninvolved in this assault or are even tacitly opposed to it 
(few Muslims will oppose it openly), but many millions of others 
in many countries are already prepared to enter Paradise by 
becoming "martyrs." In the next several months, the preferred 
terrorism tactic in this war is likely to involve chemical, 
biological or nuclear weapons. 

Our truest war is not against Osama Bin Laden or even the 
particular Arab/Islamic states that nurture and encourage 
his program for mass murder. Even if Bin Laden and every 
other identifiably major terrorist were apprehended and 
prosecuted in authoritative courts of justice, millions of 
others in the Arab/Islamic world would not cease their 
impassioned destruction of "infidels." These millions, like the 
monsters who destroyed the World Trade Center and attacked the 
Pentagon, would not intend to do evil. On the contrary, they 
would mete out death to innocents for the sake of a presumed 
divine expectation, prodding the killing of Israelis, Americans 
and Europeans with utter conviction and complete purity of heart. 
Sanctified killers, these millions would generate an incessant 
search for more "Godless" victims. Though mired in blood, their 
search would be tranquil and self-assured, born of the knowledge 
that its perpetrators were neither evil nor infamous, but heroic 
and "sacrificial." 

For those millions engaged in an Arab/Islamic war against the West, 
violence and the sacred are always inseparable. To understand the 
rationale and operation of current terrorism against the United 
States, including the September 11th attacks, it is first 
necessary to understand these conceptions of the sacred. Then, 
and only then, will it become clear that Arab/Islamic terror 
against the United States is, at its heart, a manifestation of 
religious worship known as "sacrifice." This is the truest 
meaning of Arab/Islamic terrorism against our country. It is a 
form of sacred violence oriented toward the sacrifice of both 
enemies and martyrs. It is through the purposeful killing of 
Americans, any Americans, that the Holy Warrior embarked upon 
Jihad can buy himself free from the penalty of dying. It is only 
through such cowardly killing, and not through diplomacy, that 
"Allah´s" will may be done. 

When America has understood that terrorism is only a tactic, and 
that it is a tactic related to Islamic sacrifice, it will be able 
to confront a particularly lethal enemy, one that already has 
within its capabilities the capacity to kill hundreds of thousands 
or even millions of American men, women and children. Until now, 
this is an understanding that has lent itself to insubstantial 
theorizing. Now, immediately, Arab/Islamic terrorism should be 
recognized, at least in part, as a bloody and sacred act of 
mediation between sacrificers and their deity. 

America is now routinely characterized as a "cancer" in the 
Arab/Islamic world. A recent article from an Egyptian newspaper 
speaks of "the cancer, the malignant wound, in the body of 
Arabism, for which there is no cure but eradication." 
Such references are far more than a vile metaphor. They are 
profoundly theological descriptions of a despised enemy that 
must be excised, that is, "liquidated." Where this "liquidation" 
would be accomplished by self-sacrifice, possibly even terrorism 
involving weapons of mass destruction, it would be life-affirming 
for the killers. Naturally, some Arab/Islamic governments and 
movements would deny such end-of-the-world thinking, but it 
operates nonetheless. 

What is to be done? The truth of the terrorist threat to the 
United States is vastly more grotesque than what is commonly 
understood. We face suicidal mass killings with unconventional 
weapons in the future not because there exists a small number of 
pathological murderers, but because we are embroiled - however 
unwittingly - in an authentic clash of civilizations. While we 
all wish it weren´t so, wishing will get us nowhere. 

Our only hope is to acknowledge the true source of our now 
existential danger, and proceed to fight the real war from there. 
--------------------- 
Louis Rene Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and 
is author of many books and articles dealing with terrorism and 
war.