A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Hegghammer on Jihadism, Redux

The other day I wrote a post defending Thomas Hegghammer against some criticism of his work on jihadi Islam. At the time I did the defense I based it on my own familiarity with Hegghammer's work, not with the specific Times Literary Supplement article for which he was attacked. Having read both his original TLS article, and the FrontPage article attacking him, I refer you to both of these articles.

Did the FrontPage author, David Solway, even read Hegghammer? It doesn't seem to me like he's talking about the same article I read. Has the Islamophobic right become so intolerant they don't even recognize serious intelligence analysis when they see it?

So let me plug the Jihadica site once more. I am not a knee-jerk liberal or a knee-jerk anything, but if this FrontPage article is the best the right can do, it's not very good. It argues against sound intelligence collection and assessment. That's precisely what produces Pearl Harbors and 9/11s.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Has the Islamophobic right become so intolerant they don't even recognize serious intelligence analysis when they see it?I think the answer, as far as Front Page Mag is concerned, is yes.