That is where the Osamas of the world meet the Western rejectionists of what the West is all about: rationality, individual as opposed to collective rights and interests, secularism, and capitalism. True enough, there is little common ideological ground among French Trotskyite Arlette Laguiller (who, with colleagues, has reached 10 percent in the polls in the first round of France's presidential elections) and Marxist-cum-separatist groups like the Turkish PKK, the Basque ETA, the Sri Lankan LTTE, and the Irish Republican Army. But they share a common enemy. That enemy is the Western culture of democracy (which is correctly declared un-Islamic by all ideologues of Islamic terrorism), capitalism (hated in a very ecumenical way by Marxists of all stripes and Islamists), and individualism (opposed by Marxist totalitarians dreaming of Marx's stateless communist Utopia, as well as by Islamic believers in a new Caliphate to lead the community of Muslims worldwide).

But, we are told, the Islamic states are poor and undemocratic, which justifies rebellion against their tyrannical rulers. Why is that so, and what can be done about it by Muslims and others? Perhaps most Muslim countries are undemocratic because they are Muslim. When given an electoral choice in 1992 in the first and last democratic elections in the Arab world, most Algerians preferred the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) over the secular (and corrupt) ruling socialist party -- although perfectly aware that FIS's ideology meant not just "one man, one vote" but "one man, one vote, one time." Which raises a very uncomfortable question for both conservatives in the U.S., who routinely blast the lack of democracy in the Arab world, and the human rights fundamentalists such as Amnesty International on the left, who support absolute democracy and at the same time condemn the Islamist disregard of all freedoms, as in Iran.

The apologists of Marxism and Islamism also need to answer a basic question. Did such regimes as, say, Iran, Afghanistan under the Taliban, or the late regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union actually make the life of ordinary citizens better, or worse? And why would "democracy" be better in Saudi Arabia morally, ideologically, and practically, where the chances of an Islamist getting elected are at least as great as in Algeria? Does it make sense for the European Union to condemn Turkey for proscribing (constitutionally, one might add) Islamist parties? Does Brussels really believe that an Islamic-governed Turkey is better than the current, secular Turkey, a NATO ally?

The poor in Muslim states may be the popular base of terrorist support, but they have neither the money nor the votes (who votes doesn't count, who counts them does, in Stalin's immortal words) the privileged do. Ultimately, Islamic terrorism, just as its Marxist or secessionist version in the West and Latin America was, is a matter of power -- who has it and how to get it -- not of poverty. Accepting this as a fundamental aspect of terrorism does not suggest any immediate solutions, but can direct further study toward better explanations of terrorism and theories with some potential predictive value.

Michael Radu, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where he directs its Center on Terrorism and Political Violence. This article appeared in Frontpagemag.com

A Letter from a Survivor

Naomi Ragen

Dear Friends:

This Passover, I and my family were at the Park Hotel seder night. We left the lobby and went upstairs to begin a private seder. Five minutes later, the building shook as the worst carnage in recent Israeli history took place.

I wrote about this experience. An editor at the New York Times who read it said it was compelling, but they were going to run another piece on the Passover Massacre by a Scott Andersen. Oh, I asked, was he also there? No, he wasn't. But the New York Times prefers to get their stories from people who weren't there. Or from Israeli leftists like Yossi Sarid, and Yossi Beilin, and Shlomo Ben Ami, two-bit politicians all of whom are considered traitors by the average Israeli, who have nothing to do with their time but sell Israel and her people out again and again to any enemy willing to give them the time of day.

I feel the miracle of survival, and the anger at all those who allow, support, and encourage the Islamic-Nazis to continue their work. I'm angry at the hotel security guard who didn't do his job (believe me, I was an eye witness). At the hotel manager who didn't do his. I'm angry at the government of Israel for eight years of useless appeasement that let Arafat and his terrorists in and allowed them to build up bomb factories; I'm angry at the present government of Israel which took so long to go into the rat-warrens of the terrorist scum in the Palestinian controlled territories in which they are now taking out thousands and thousands of weapons and bomb-building equipment. I'm angry at the hypocrisy of the European scum who blow up synagogues and burn Jewish school buses and talk about what we are doing to the Poor Palestinians. I'm angry at the American President who says he understands Israel's right to defend herself,

May 2002               - 9 -               Outpost