Jihad Joe_ Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam - J. M. Berger [2]
No definition of terrorism is universally accepted. For purposes of this book, terrorists are nongovernment actors who engage in violence against noncombatants in order to accomplish a political goal or amplify a message. Noncombatants include political leaders (such as Anwar Sadat) and military personnel not engaged in a conflict (for instance, the victims of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing). Terrorists may be supported by states, but they have a fundamental quality of independence—or at least of disavowal and deniability.
Under this definition, John Wilkes Booth would be considered a terrorist, as would the Unabomber. The Third Reich would not be considered a terrorist organization, but American neo-Nazis would. The state of Israel is not a terrorist organization, regardless of one’s views on the morality of its actions, but the Jewish Defense League was. The label is about describing context and behavior, not about assigning moral judgment. As it is used here, the word “terrorism” is not a moral qualifier or a tool for demonizing individuals or groups; it’s an attempt to verbalize the fundamental difference between the actions of an established and recognized nation and what is essentially a vigilante mentality targeting noncombatants.
A key term in this book is “jihadist.” Generally, anyone characterized as a jihadist will fit into one of the following categories:
• Someone who travels abroad to fight in a foreign conflict specifically in the name of Islam.
• Someone who takes part in terrorist activities that are explicitly defined by the participants as a form of military jihad or that are explicitly motivated by jihadist ideology.
• Someone who actively finances, supports, advocates, or provides religious justification for explicit military jihad as described previously.
Not all jihadists are terrorists or even criminals. Not everyone profiled in this book is a terrorist or a criminal, although many are. The sample of people discussed in these pages is skewed toward terrorists because those cases are better documented and because, in the post–September 11 environment, many American Muslims who took part in jihad but not in terrorism are understandably reluctant to draw attention to themselves. I can sympathize with their reasons, but I wish I could have found more people who would step forward for this discussion in order to present a more balanced point of view. Anyone with this kind of history should feel free to contact me—there will be other opportunities to tell those stories, and I think it’s important.
A few other useful terms to consider:
Radicals: For purposes of this book, radicals are people or institutions that advocate an ideology with clear connections to nonstate violence, whether by justifying it or by providing rationalizations that are clear precursors to action.
Conservative and/or fundamentalist: Wherever possible, I prefer the former term to the latter. In discussing Muslim terrorism, the discussion of religious views and social mores is unavoidable. Muslims or people who adhere to forms of Islam described herein as conservative tend to be communities that strictly enforce such Islamic or Arab cultural practices as covering women’s faces, banning music, or criminalizing homosexuality.
Jihadist incitement: When people in this book are called jihadists even though they have not committed violence, this refers to those who make explicit and unqualified calls to take part in violent acts specifically described as jihad.
WHAT WENT INTO THIS BOOK
I documented more than 240 American citizen jihadists while researching this book. About half of them were born in the United States. I also examined 41 legal long-term residents of the United States. For every case we know about, there are a certain number of cases that have never become public, particularly those concerning Americans who fought overseas in