One year ago, in January of 2015, Muslim terrorists, crowing about vengeance for the prophet Mohammed, attacked the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The rampage was the kick-off for a three-day jihadist assault which would stretch across the city, including in a kosher market, leaving 17 innocents dead.
I should, because I can, be more precise. They were not simply Muslim terrorists, though they were, by their own testimony, that. Better: they were radical Muslim terrorists; or, better still: they were radical Islamist terrorists. The qualifier Islamist, conveys that brand of fanatical thought which insists Islam is much more than merely a faith that shapes personal piety but is an organizing principle encompassing all ethical, economic, political, and social activity. For the Islamist, Islam is a totalizing system that governs every bit of life - all of it, for everybody, believer and non-believer — and those who don't agree to this are to be subdued, to the nth degree. This fundamental strain of political Islam is adhered to by such as Boko Haram, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and ISIS.
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