Explosions that, in that apocalyptic aftermath that Beirut knew so well from wars past, revealed that more than 200 people were killed, 300,000 people were left homeless, and more than 100,000 homes were destroyed. For “a nation pitied” for its modern misfortunes with war and the internal rifts that sink it even deeper, the Beirut blasts revealed that terror is an enterprise not tied to any one faith or nonfaith. While news outlets and pundits pushed us to blame the catastrophe on the familiar list of Muslim networks, in line with War on Terror impulses, the truth revealed that global crusade’s fundamental lie: that terrorism is a uniquely Islamic enterprise. Sometimes, terror is a consequence of corruption, negligence, and as this book illustrates, religious and even secular ideology. More than often, terror is the outcome of old empires and their modern successors, chiefly the United States—my country—which occupies the citadel of neocolonial wars on terror and the new crusades they have spawned.

XREF: Challenges the War on Terror framing that terrorism is uniquely Islamic, echoing critiques in postcolonial and critical terrorism studies.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 32