What We Can't Not Know
George Weigel
The Problem Isn't Generic "Religious Extremism"
Six year after 9/11, we certainly should have learned that the threat that made itself lethally clear that day was not generic -- "religious extremism" -- but very specific: global jihadism.
Nor ought we think that what we "say to" the jihadists will have much of a soothing effect on their passions, as if they were overwrought teenagers and we were high-school guidance counselors armed with reassuring words and a prescription for Prozac.
Indeed, I suspect that what we say to each other, as Americans, is much more important on this anniversary than what we say to the jihadists. And what we ought to be telling each other today, on 9/11+6, is what we cannot not know.
We can't not know the identity of the enemy -- global jihadism -- and what that enemy believes. That is, we can't not know that global jihadism teaches that it is the duty of every Muslim to use any means available to advance the prospects of a world that acknowledg…