This article is a "must read" (I rarely use that superlative) for anyone who is serious about understanding the threat of militanot Islamism. It isn't some Ralph Peters jingoistic crap like you'd see on Fox nor is it the Code Pink, "if we had a hug in the world would be perfect" slush. Instead it is a fairly balanced and hard look at what at least some segment of the enemy (and I'm perfectly comfortable with calling anyone opposed to the classical liberal tradition of the Enlightenment my ideological enemy and my physical enemy should he or she threaten force) is thinking.

Quote :

"An interesting new strategy document has appeared on the forums. (See also here.) It is entitled “The Vision of the Jihaadi Movement and the Strategy of the Current Stage” and written by one Abu Jihad ash-Shami, “a Mujaahid in one of the known Global Jihaadi Fronts that espouse[s] the Salafi Jihaadi Methodology,” as the anonymous translator puts it. In some ways, this document is an entry into the long-standing debate in Salafi jihadist circles over whether it is best to focus on the near enemy or the far. This author’s emphasis is on the global fight, putting him to that extent in the al Qaida camp. However, he also criticizes al Qaida’s strategy and offers a new one. Ash-Shami starts out by defining a goal for the Salafi jihadists: the establishment of the Caliphate. Of course, this is not new though he will go on to argue that many jihadists have, as a practical matter, lost sight of it. Interestingly, he does add one new angle in saying that this Caliphate must “govern the entire earth with all of the Shari’ah.” While the jihadists, of course, believe that Islam has universal applicability and thus should and will come to Peoria eventually, they usually don’t spill much ink on that, so this was an interesting passage."

http://onwarandwords.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/assessing-the-vision-of-the-jihaadi-movement/

FWIW . . .

[Edited on November 7, 2010 at 11:53 PM. Reason : .]

11/7/2010 11:49:45 PM