The article wasnt meant to say anything about al Qaeda but about how we conceive of this "action", whatever it is.
Look, if you didnt like it or didnt understand it or thought you could write a better essay, have at it.
But your comments indicate you don't understand the essay.
Well, let's quote from it to see what it says:
For us the hijackings, like the Palestinian suicide bombings, are viewed merely as a modus operandi, a technique that is incidental to a larger strategic purpose, a makeshift device, a low-tech stopgap. In short, Clausewitzian war carried out by other means in this case by suicide.
But in the fantasy ideology of radical Islam, suicide is not a means to an end but an end in itself. Seen through the distorting prism of radical Islam, the act of suicide is transformed into that of martyrdom martyrdom in all its transcendent glory and accompanied by the panoply of magical powers that religious tradition has always assigned to martyrdom.
That sure looks like he's claiming to know what the "prism of radical Islam" actually is.
But this fact gave to the event in terms of al Qaedas fantasy ideology an even greater poignancy: Precisely because it had not been part of the original calculation, it was therefore to be understood as a manifestation of divine intervention. The 19 hijackers did not bring down the towers God did.
More claims to understand Al Qaeda's ideology.
Here's some more:
this interpretation is correct, then it is time that we reconsider some of our basic policy in the war on terror. First of all, it should be obvious that if our enemy is motivated purely by a fantasy ideology, it is absurd for us to look for the so-called root causes of terrorism in poverty, lack of education, a lack of democracy, etc.
And some more:
While the Sorelian myth does aim, finally, at transforming the real world, it is almost as if the real world no longer matters in terms of the fantasy ideology of radical Islam. Our real world, after all, is utterly secular, a concatenation of an endless series of cause and effect, with all events occurring on a single ontological plane. But the real world of radical Islam is different its fantasy ideology reflects the same philosophical occasionalism that pervades so much of Islamic theology:
So now he's adding to his totally unfounded claims about Al Qaeda, with broad sweeps about "Islamic theology" and what pervades it.
Once we understand this, many of our current perplexities will find themselves resolved. Pseudo-issues such as debates over the legitimacy of racial profiling would disappear
Nice conclusion-we won't even debate "pseudo issues" like whether or not treating people differently on the basis of race is important, once we "understand Al Qaeda" like he does.
I have to say, it looks pretty clear to me-and it doesn't look like he's just saying "oh, we don't understand AQ"--he's saying that he does, and then telling the rest of us we should agree with him, even though he cites not one shred of evidence to support his diatribe.