New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman recently published an OP-ED that argued the "virtual" terrorist threat in the form of "hundreds of jihadist Web sites that inspire, train, educate and recruit young Muslims to engage in jihad against America and the West," is as dangerous as anything currrently happening in the "real Afghanistan."

Stop. Think.

I've written about national security in the cyber realm for more than a decade, including an entire book on the emerging threat of cyber-terrorism. So I'm well-versed in the label of fear-monger, as many of the narrow-minded have labled me over the years. However, Friedman's argument that the virtual world of online propaganda is a central front in the war on terrorism threatens to lead us on yet another dangerous path -- one of misconception and miscalculation.

The tools of propaganda -- of which the Internet is but one -- have never been the central problem facing the United States and the West in this war on terrorism. If the Internet did not exist, there would be other tools of the trade. The real underlying problem that truly threatens our success against Islamic extremism is the systematic indoctrination and brainwashing of Muslim youth around the world and the outright reluctance -- bordering on refusal -- of mainstream, peace-loving Muslims to stand up and cleanse their religion of haters and murderers.

For those who fear I may be overstating the case, I encourage you to watch Palestinian television or any number of Saudi television broadcasts. To your horror, you will see children as young as four and five being lectured on the evils of Jews and Christians, and the virtues of violent struggle against them. You will see self-proclaimed religious scholars and academics chuckle about the thought of killing millions of Americans with weaponized Anthrax.

What you won't see is any organized, large-scale attempt by Muslims in any corner of this world condemning such indoctrination or, better yet, taking actions to stop it. The frontlines of this war run through the minds of children and young people throughout the Muslim world and we are doing very little to ensure the destruction of the system of indoctrination.

So why does the Internet not matter? It doesn't matter because the people we need to worry about are those who are vulnerable to the messaging of hatred and violence -- people who would be vulnerable to the messaging regardless of the format or medium employed to communicate it.

I'm a Catholic. If a million Web sites popped up tomorrow espousing the evils of Protestants and argued for violent destruction of Protestant places of worship, I wouldn't run out and begin building improvised explosive devices. Why? Because I'm not vulnerable to such ignorance. There's nothing in my adult DNA that relates to such absurd, mindless hatred, violence and murder.

Look across the youth of the Muslim world, particularly in Palestine, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, however, and you will find masses of four and five-year-old automatons following the every word of an adult leadership that has charted for them a course the leads only to more death, destruction and despair.

But wait! says Friedman and others. What are we to make of the five young men from the United States who were recently arrested in Pakistan for conspiring to carryout terrorist attacks overseas? They were certainly not a product of this so-called systematic indoctrination that is taking part overseas.

Well, yes and no.

There are plenty of examples in the United States where one can find radical, extremist views being preached and espoused to young people. Homeland Security Television has shown clips from conferences in Chicago and other cities in the U.S. where Muslim leaders and religous scholars have preached hatred, intolerance and even violence to large audiences of mostly young Muslim males. Experts, like former DHS Director of Middle Eastern Affairs Christopher Hinn, point out that if one wants to determine if a Muslim Imam is preaching hatred or radical views, you simply need to sit outside the mosque and watch who goes in. If the assembly is mostly young men, then that Imam is preaching hate.

But what is most troubling and a critical factor in the radicalization of young men in the U.S. and other Western countries is the absolute silence -- one could even argue complicity -- of the mainstream Muslim communities who want us to believe they are against terrorists. This is where the rubber meets the road in the war on terror's Western Front. America and its allies will never win the battle for the hearts and minds of young western Muslims without the active participation of the larger Muslim communities in western countries.

The problem is that Muslim community groups have adopted a victim mentality -- remaining dangerously silent accept when there is an opportunity to hold a press conference or issue a press release condemning one violent act or another. And Americans reinforce this bunker mentality by pretending this is a war that will be won or lost "over there." This is insufficient.  

If the world wants to defeat Islamic terrorism, then the world must demand greater action -- loud, audacious action -- by peace-loving Muslims around the world who want us to belive their religion has been hijacked by ignorant murderers. Silence and condemnation by press-release is complicity. It is time for the forces of light in the Islamic world to rise up and pull their faith back away from the precipice of disaster. Reform must begin from within. And nothing short of revolutionary reform will do in the battle against extremism, hatred and violence.

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Dan Verton is the founder and executive producer of Homeland Security Television, and the author of Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-Terrorism (McGraw-Hill, 2003).