Naming the Enemy

One of my name the enemy in this war. According to Mark, the 9/11 Commission report (which I haven't yet read) does so:

But the enemy is not just “terrorism,” some generic evil.2 This vagueness blurs the strategy.The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism—especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.
[snip]
Our enemy is twofold: al Qaeda, a stateless network of terrorists that struck us on 9/11; and a radical ideological movement in the Islamic world, inspired in part by al Qaeda, which has spawned terrorist groups and violence across the globe.The first enemy is weakened, but continues to pose a grave threat. The second enemy is gathering, and will menace Americans and American interests long after Usama Bin Ladin and his cohorts are killed or captured.

UPDATE: Wizbang notes a paragraph in my [snip] above, which quite impressed me as well. Since it's come up, I'll post the paragraph as well. It's the 9/11 Commission's take on Islamist terrorism and what we can do about it:

It is not a position with which Americans can bargain or negotiate. With it there is no common ground—not even respect for life—on which to begin a dialogue. It can only be destroyed or utterly isolated.

It's a terrible shame that this report appears to be extraordinarily complete, well-written and balanced, because I still cannot fully credit it: the political shenanigans of the commissioners earlier taints the report. That doesn't mean I won't read it though; just that I will read it more sceptically that I otherwise would have done.

Posted by Jeff at July 23, 2004 12:36 AM | Link Cosmos