Below is an excerpt (of an excerpt :-)) from
The Islamic Question
by Roberto A.M. Bertacchini and Piersandro Vanzan S.I.
…as found in the article, “Oriana Fallaci Has Enrolled in the Society of Jesus”
Islamic terrorism is a rather complex response to the confrontation with the West, which Islam sees as a devastating, deadly threat.
At the end of the 1980’s, there was a pitched battle within the Islamist camp between the positions of Abdullah Azzam and the more extremist positions of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, a true ideologue of jihad in the form it has taken today, which includes in the category of enemy the “Herodians,†or those who collaborate with the West. On November 24, 1989, Azzam was assassinated in Peshawar, and Al-Zawahiri had an open field.
For the zealots, everything that comes from the outside is like poison to their traditional ways of life, so they hold that there is only one way to avert cultural catastrophe: expel the invader and hermetically seal off the borders, so nothing can pollute or corrupt their miniature world. This is, in part, the position of Osama Bin Laden, who is opposed to the American presence, not only in Iraq, but also in Saudi Arabia.
But this defensive program would never work against Western civilization. Unlike all previous civilizations, it is not localized or territorially circumscribed. The pervasiveness of the global village is such that there is only one way to escape its grasp: destroy it….
I have yet to locate theentire 30-page article on the web, but when (if) I do, I’ll post the link. Still, the article I have linked has much more than I noted here. Read it and return. We’ll talk, eh?