I am writing to correct an error in your story on Cornell's panel discussion of Monday, Sept. 9, "The Impact of 9/11 on the International Scene" (News, "C.U. Panel Talks About Sept. 11, Impact on World, Sept. 10, 2002); I was a participant in this panel.


I did not say, as your reporter states, that the United States and its allies should combat Islamic fanaticism. I said, rather, that they should combat Islamist fanaticism. There is a difference, a point I clarified in my talk. This is what I said: To turn to our allies, the administration has only begun to tackle the task, as difficult as it is necessary, of transforming an alliance that was created to meet one threat -- the challenge of communism -- into a new alliance that is capable of meeting another threat -- the challenge of Islamist fanaticism. Having used that term, let me state immediately what should be obvious to everyone of good will: that America's war is NOT against Islam, which is one of the world's great religions; that we are NOT fighting in a clash of civilizations; that America itself has and must continue to keep its doors as open to Muslims as to everyone else; that our quarrel is only with fanatics who make war on us and who misuse religion in order to advance an agenda of medievalism and they do so in cahoots with radical, secular cynics.

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