Osama bin Laden's feelings, like his whereabouts, remain a mystery. But if he were to suddenly surface tomorrow to deliver a State of the Jihad speech, it might sound something like this: "Fellow members of Al Qaeda - Islam is in mortal danger from the West. Americans are the new Mongols, successors to the infidel hordes who sacked Baghdad and other Islamic capitals in the 13th century. They represent both a physical and a spiritual threat, as their materialistic ideology, their emphasis on the individual and the secular, can seduce believers away from the true path of Islam. Jihad is the antidote to this poison. As a real war, it offers an opportunity to strike the infidels. As a state of being, it offers participants a way to prove their worthiness before God." Three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, the United States is still struggling to identify its main adversaries in the war on terrorism. The US knows their identity, of course. They are the members of Al Qaeda and its associatedjihadist groups around the globe. But knowing who they are, in terms of grasping the way they look at the world, their philosophies, their hopes, and their plans, is another story. |