Less abstractly, the recent Islamist jihadist terror plots show that the enemy is not, as Joe Biden and President Obama would have it, simply al-Qaeda. Nor is the enemy solely the Taliban of Afghanistan and Pakistan, important as those areas are as places of training and indoctrination.
The enemy facing the US, and much of the rest of the world as well, is Islamist jihadism. The enemy is intangible but real. It is, at root an idea. But, ideas must exist first if action is to come later.
There have been a few attempts to link the individuals arrested in New York, Colorado, Illinois, Texas, and North Carolina by means of socio-economic speculations. People excluded from the American dream according to one CNN "expert" yesterday serves as one example of the species.
While the Jordanian illegal alien arrested in Texas and the American prison convert to Islam popped in the second of two sting operations might fairly be seen as marginal members of American life and society, the same cannot be written of the men arrested in Colorado and New York. It is beyond the realm of fact to claim the North Carolina men arrested last month were among the wretched of the Earth.
As has been argued so many times, by so many people, in so many fora, the socio-economic explanations for adherence to the ideas behind Islamist jihadism simply do not work. They do not accurately nor completely address the skein of motivations behind the wannabe martyr.
The only thing in common, the only bind between the men arrested in the US over the past month, is True Belief in one particular interpretation of Islam. This is also the only thing held in common by the Islamist jihadists of 9/11, of 7/7, of Madrid, of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al-Shaabab in Somalia, the assorted terror groups in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and elsewhere around the world.
Islamist jihadism is the idea around which individuals and groups organize. It is the central, the critical axis without which the terror could not, would not exist.
It is important to understand that the terror tactics employed by Islamist jihadists are rooted in soil fundamentally unlike that which has given rise to previous practitioners of the dark arts of terror. Whether the anarchists of a century and more ago or the more recent traditional terrorists of the assorted Palestinian entities such as Fatah, the motivation was purely political, and the goal was the removal of a particular regime or set of regimes.
Classic terror groups were quite secular.
Classic terror groups self-organized around a specific political ideology and pursued a specific political goal. Even the anarchists who walked a very bloody path for a couple of decades had a particular goal in mind: the removal of governments. Other groups best typified by those which organized in the wake of the Six Day War had a very limited (if equally impossible) goal: the ejection of Israel from the occupied territories.
At the beginning, even al-Qaeda was more secular than religious in its stated goals. Taking Osama bin Laden at his word, the goals of al-Qaeda in the mid-Nineties were limited to the ejection of the US from the Land of the Two Mosques, ending US support for Israel, and ending the "apostate" rule of Saudi Arabia. Religion per se played only a supporting role in the early days of bin Laden's war against the US and its "puppets" in the Mideast.
These rather abstract goals were mighty thin gruel on which to nourish an organization which called upon its adherents to die. As the months and then the years went by, the religious focus of the al-Qaeda message went front and center. No longer were the goals confined to the merely political, the mundanely secular.
Now the name of the game was Furthering The True Faith. No longer was it sufficient that the US take its forces out of Saudi Arabia or even toss Israel to the Arab wolves. Now it was necessary for the US and all those who lived there to sincerely repent, and, (drum roll, please) convert to Islam. The American eagle must exalt the One True Faith.
The putting of Islam at the center of the message allowed further self-organizing even when al-Qaeda was reduced to fugitive status seeking shelter in the FATA. Being a totalistic belief system in which there can be no distinction between faith and politics, faith and the individual, faith and the community, Islam lends itself quite well to the needs of an incomplete personality.
Putting it simply, an incomplete personality is one which has no sound, well-defined sense of personal identity. The incomplete personality seeks completion, seeks the establishment of a powerful sense of personal identity in some idea existing outside himself. Islam, particularly that of the Wahhibist or Salifist sort, is particularly attractive to the incomplete personality as it promises a degree of certitude, a sense of completion, and a totality of identity that cannot be equaled by any other belief or ideology.
Beneath the surface differences, the men arrested in the US over the past month have something very basic in common not only with each other but with the Islamist jihadists everywhere. They are incomplete personalities who discovered a compelling and fulfilling sense of personal identity and worth through becoming True Believers. True Believers in not simply Islam, but that particularly demanding form of Islam--Islamist jihadism.
None of these men needed to be recruited let alone directed by some central authority. They did not need to shake hands with a recruiter for al-Qaeda. They needed only exposure to the ideas comprising Islamist jihadism.
The same is true of the Islamist jihadist groups which jointly are dubbed "Taliban." It has been well understood for some time that there was no single, monolithic entity behind the name but rather an assemblage of groups having different goals in detail, following different local leaders, pursuing different tactics, but all united by the belief in Islamist jihadism.
Only the idea is necessary to create the appearance of joint action by many controlled by a central authority. We need to get a grip on a couple of ground truths here.
The first is that Islam in and of itself, common, everyday Islam has a very real power for many people around the world. It gives a sense of community, a feeling of belonging to something far larger than the mere individual which is not surpassed by any other religion and equaled by few. The totalistic nature of Islam assures that people know their roles in life and are comfortable with that knowledge. It's emphasis on justice (at least rhetorically) reassures those who see themselves as the victims of injustice.
Islamist jihadism adds to this powerful mix a message of self-sacrifice for the greatest of Great Causes--the defense and advancement of Islam. It also promises eternal reward for that sacrifice which is no small matter given the fear of eternal hell which is so much a part of Islam's preaching.
Humanity has long been marked by a willingness, even eagerness, on the part of individuals to die in the service of a great, compelling, and totalistic idea. Islamist jihadism simply continues the pattern with a particular focus on dieing in the process of killing the enemies of Islam.
The pervasiveness and power of the ideas constituting Islamist jihadism render the existence of a central command and control authority both unnecessary, and, arguably, undesirable. The ideas of Islamist jihadism are both quite powerful and highly personal. They provide for ready volunteers but not sheep commanded to the slaughter. Each jihadi makes his own decision, keeps his own council, joins associates as a purely volitional action. He does not need a commander. At most he needs only a local leader. More generally he needs only a symbol.
Osama bin Laden is such a symbol. That is and has been his only role for years now. Even if he were to be killed or, worse, captured, his value as a symbol would not be decreased. It would only be enhanced. This is why specifically targeting him is conterproductive: When we place value on the symbol it benefits only the symbol.
The power of the ideas underlying the term Islamist jihadism has been shown with undeniable drama since they emerged from the shadows of Islam a couple of decades ago. These ideas are not either countered or destroyed easily.
This means the self-organizing Islamist jihadist group or adherent is particularly difficult to defeat. Each one must be neutralized in a retail way. And, for each neutralized, at least in the short- to mid-term, others will emerge.
Only persistence of the most extreme sort will do the job. However, persistence alone is not enough. The US and other governments must learn and acknowledge as must We the People that ideas, even ones such as those underlying Islamist jihadism which are repugnant to us, are possessed of a terrific amount of power and appeal.
Islamist jihadism and its violent excrescences will be with us a long, very long time. Not until their appeal is so undercut by failure that they disappear on their own will we be rid of the incomplete personality who seeks True Belief driven completion by dropping a skyscraper, destroying a subway, or flying an airliner into the side of a building.
Hey! Who ever said life would be a pleasant walk in the sunshine of a forever Spring.
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