It is a cliché that terrorism has replaced Communism as the evil empire against which all people with concern for truth, justice and democracy must fight. In the complex and deceptive world of political discourse, this has transformed ideological formulations of how (and against what), a terrorist is defined. There has been a clear move away from defining terrorism, specifically "Islamic" terrorism, as originating in the totalitarian, expansionist agendas of the now-defunct Soviet Union and its satellites. "Islamic" terrorism is characterized as overtly religious, or the product of insanity, "nihilism," and the psychopathic opposition to a mythical construction of "universal human rights."
