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But there's one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn't one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people.

It is necessary to name the enemy of human civilization, and this enemy is international terrorism associated with religious fundamentalism and religious intolerance.

Terrorists regard themselves as a vanguard. They're trying to mobilize others to their cause. I mean, every specialist on terrorism knows that.

One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown.

What our leaders and pundits never let slip is that the terrorists - whatever else they might be - might also be rational human beings; which is to say that in their own minds they have a rational justification for their actions.

There are works of fiction which seek to explain jihadi terrorists as the militant wing of Amnesty International. I don't buy that.

When I hear about these terrorist ideologies, they are completely foreign and strange to me. I mean, to me, it's, like, antithetical.

The objective of a terrorist is to create political change in the society he targets.

The threat from terrorists - from extreme ideologies - needs to be challenged head-on.