Article: The Plotters Against America; Two new books disagree sharply about how big a threat Osama bin Laden and his allies pose.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF AL QAEDA

By Abdel Bari Atwan

Univ. of California. 256 pp. $24.95

WHAT TERRORISTS WANT

Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat

By Louise Richardson

Random House. 312 pp. $25.95

We should strike the term "terrorist group" from the lexicon of those charged with beating Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and its allies. The term defeats thought, understanding and imagination, and it allows leaders in both parties to argue a politically correct absurdity: that al-Qaeda threatens U.S. national security but that our attackers are a limited number of criminal magicians who have hijacked the faith of millions of Muslims and will "be brought to justice one man at a time."

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