Leaving aside the allegations of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a skillful use of the %u201Cbig lie%u201D technique, let us consider the allegation that so-called Islamic Fascism threatens Western Civilization. This is another big lie. The nature of this lie is revealed by the fact Ayman Zawahari, Usama Bin Laden, and the movements they lead were incapable of posing a significant threat to the Egyptian and Saudi states respectively. Zawahari%u2019s Jihad group was ruthlessly crushed by the Egyptian government during the mid-1990s. Bin Laden%u2019s challenge to the Saudi state in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War was similarly thwarted. Hence, both men eventually ended up in a cave in Afghanistan. The terrorist acts they orchestrated in Egypt and Saudi Arabia proved to be a nuisance, in a strategic sense. However, at no time did those acts constitute an existentialist threat to either state.
While terrorist acts perpetrated by what has come to be known as al-Qaeda may be disruptive, they could never pose a significant threat to the integrity of Western Civilization, neither politically, economically, nor socially. By way of illustration, it took less than two months for the stock markets to rebound to pre-September 11, 2001 levels in the aftermath of the attacks of that day. Today, five years after those attacks, American exports are higher, global trade levels, led by the United States, are higher, world tourism is up, domestic air travel, the sector hardest hit in the aftermath of th
