So this is the kind of thing that cracks me up lately: The title of an article cited in this Cooper book I just finished:
Chairman of the Arab Psychiatrists Association Offers Diagnoses: Bush Is Stupid; Perpetrating a Suicide/Martyrdom Attack is Life's Most Beautiful Moment; We'll Throw Israel Into the Sea.
Which I instantly imagined as the bullet points of a Power Point presentation, for a convention hall full of bored jihadis, who are all thinking "Yeah, yadda-yadda-yadda. When are we breaking for lunch?"
I'm a little concerned about being 100% not shocked about Beslan. It’s a pretty natural progression in tactics, really. And of course "eliminating" the West includes children; how could it not? And I think probably in the course of reading a lot of stuff by and about terrorists, the emotional impact of it has pretty much worn off. So my reaction to Beslan was mainly to think, hmm, I wonder what that will do? (To Russian or US politics, Muslim opinion, etc.) And, what if they did something like that here, what would that do?
Which of course is pretty much exactly how they think of it. Maybe it’s time to take a little break.
Update: A reader objected to the reference to a monolithic "them" in describing Chechan terrorists, quoting from this Guardian article:
"Margarita Komoyeva, a physics teacher released the day before the terrible climax in Beslan, said: "One of them told me: 'Russian soldiers are killing our children in Chechnya, so we are here to kill yours'."
The words were amplified yesterday on a website that is close to Shamil Basayev, the most extreme Chechen commander, whom Russian officials think was the mastermind behind the Beslan atrocity. "However many children in that school were held hostage, however many of them will die (and have already died) ... it is incomparably less than the 42,000 Chechen children of school age, who have been killed by Russian invaders," said the statement on www.kavkazcenter.com.
I replied: Language that sounds like it's only about revenge to us is actually nearly always in reference to the theological justification for jihad; jihad is only orthodox if it can be understood to be defensive, and specifically in defense of Islam and the Muslim ummah. When Islamist terrorists justify their actions, there will always be a reference to some way in which Christendom is attacking Islam, be that the plight of the Palestinians, or U.S. "occupiers" in Saudi Arabia, or what have you. There may also be some instrumental goal intended; Chechans may want Russia to understand these as punitive actions that will not stop until Russia grants them independence. Notice how this "pragmatic" goal folds into the theological justification; if terrorism can be understood as a form of asymmetrical warfare that accomplishes the same political goals as conventional warfare would, and that goal can be understood to be defensive, then it is jihad.
(Notice also how events like Beslan carry the much more likely outcome of increased repression in the contested areas. This possible outcome is just fine with Islamist terrorists; they are not after justice for Chechans, but worldwide Islamist revolution. Anything that can create a flashpoint or whip up anti-Western feeling is all to the good).
These convolutions are important; the plain meaning of the extensive rules about just warfare in the Koran absolutely forbids most aspects of the tactics adopted by modern Islamist terrorists.
Chechan fighters have extensive and well-documented operational ties to transnational Islamist groups like al Qaeda. The Chechan conflict has clearly been adopted into the worldwide Islamist cause, as is every conflict involving Muslims sooner or later. Jihadis are the ambulance chasers of the Muslim world.
But on the other hand, it's hard to know whether, for example, Palestinians or Chechnyans are completely wise to how they're being exploited; they may still think these actions are about their local issues instead of a larger agenda. So indeed there may be mixed motives among group members. But the operation as a whole bears the stamp of Islamist jihad methodology in my opinion.