I Take As My Fundamental Starting Point

Osama Bin Laden, The Person, More Likely Serves The Function Of A Stand-in. Compare The New Terrorists With Partisans Or Conventional Terrorists In Israel. These People Often Fight In A Decentralized Manner In Small, Autonomous Units, Too.

Some Of Those Drawn Into The Holy War Had Been Secular Nationalists Only A Few Years Before. If One Looks At The Biographies Of These People, Remarkable Continuities Are Revealed.

Global Terrorism Is Extreme Both In Its Lack Of Realistic Goals And In Its Cynical Exploitation Of The Vulnerability Of Complex Systems.

What Was New Was The Symbolic Force Of The Targets Struck. The Attackers Did Not Just Physically Cause The Highest Buildings In Manhattan To Collapse; They Also Destroyed An Icon In The Household Imagery Of The American Nation.

From A Moral Point Of View, There Is No Excuse For Terrorist Acts, Regardless Of The Motive Or The Situation Under Which They Are Carried Out.