The former Jihadi said...
On this 4th of July, I started the day with a cup of coffee, looking forward to spending time with family and friends celebrating our Nation's Birthday. I opened up my laptop to what was happening in the world. I was in a really good mood until I stumbled onto this:
When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British
Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.
By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair's bombs" line did our propaganda work for us.
More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
Those are the words of former Islamic fanatic, Hassan Butt, writing in the Daily Mail. He left the Jihadi movement in February of 2006 when he "realised that its members had simply become mindless killers." Is there really any need for me to comment on this? I'll just let him continue...
But if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again.
Mohammed Sidique Khan met with the author on two separate occasions Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the July 7 bombings, and I were both part of the network - I met him on two occasions.
And though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many others to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain and abroad was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary worldwide Islamic state that would dispense Islamic justice.
Think about that. How many times have we been over this. Their goal is not to live in peace. Their goal is to convert you or kill you. And they feel completely justified in doing it. He continues...
The foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.
Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same.
For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.
But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief).
Ah, so we are all non-believers. Now pay close attention to this because this is important...
Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world.
Along with many of my former peers, I was taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief.
In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.
But we have to afford them the protections of the Geneva Convention? Let me tell you something. You cannot fight these people with sensitivity. You will never stop these maniacs by trying to be civilized. You can give me this "we'll be no better than them" bullshit all you want, it isn't going to change the reality that these people are willing to glorify murdering innocent people in pursuit of their stated goal. And honestly, that's what separates us from them. Our motives, our goals, and our state of mind. We don't purposely target civilians. We aren't willing to cut the heads off of non-Christians. We actually desire peace. They desire death. That is what separates us. Not our tactics, but our intent.
No war has ever been won by doing just enough to win. You win wars by completely overwhelming your enemy. You win wars by making your enemy so miserable and so desperate to survive, they will surrender. You have to make them so miserable, that they actually change their mindset from that of willing to die to that of just seeking peace, to that of just wishing it was over. That's how you defeat them.
Those on the left that want to blame American foreign policy and George Bush had better wake up and smell reality. They hated us before we invaded Iraq. They wanted to kill us before George W. Bush was elected. They wanted to dominate the world long before any of this current mess started. And they aren't going to just stop coming after us if we leave Iraq. They do hate us for our freedoms. They do hate us for our way of life. Their stated goal is an Islamic world. And by definition, an Islamic world goes against every notion of freedom and our way of life. I can't imagine any better day than July 4th to think about that.
Happy Independence Day...
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