Two Questions at the Heart of Bin Laden’s Jihad - Lawrence Wright

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-09/questions-at-the-heart-of-bin-laden-s-jihad-commentary-by-lawrence-wright.html

Al-Qaeda killed many times more Muslims in Iraq alone than Americans who died on Sept. 11. That doesn’t count the Muslims murdered by the group in Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. In the name of al-Qaeda’s vision of Islam, children have been turned into suicide bombers, both Muslims and non-Muslims have been beheaded (sometimes on video), women have had their faces burned off, schools were destroyed, lovers stoned, aid workers murdered, and the whole world held hostage to terror.
In the minds of many non-Muslims, Islam has become synonymous with barbarism. Nothing said by more moderate Muslim voices could compete with the appalling imagery put forward by al-Qaeda’s terror masters.
Then came the Arab Spring