What do they want? A couple weeks ago, I posted (here) on this question, based on a column by Larry Elder (here). His main point was that the terrorists want us to either (1) convert to their brand of Islam, (2) accept second-class status, which also requires the payment of a special tax, or (3) die. Those are the choices.
Yesterday, Daniel Pipes, of Middle East Forum, wrote a column (here) on the same question. His article takes a broader view of the same terrorist goal. While Larry Elder looked at what the terrorists want from each individual in the whole world, Daniel Pipes also looks at the world the terrorists are envisioning.
He explains that when the Islamofascist terrorist started, during the 1970s, they made their goals clear: Release these criminals from prison; cancel the showing of this movie that insults Islam. Now, though, the terrorists don't bother to say why individually. They don't need to.
In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and Islamic law, the Shari'a. Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their "real project is the extension of the Islamic territory across the globe, and the establishment of a worldwide ‘caliphate' founded on Shari'a law."
Terrorists openly declare this goal. The Islamists who assassinated Anwar el-Sadat in 1981 decorated their holding cages with banners proclaiming the "caliphate or death." A biography of one of the most influential Islamist thinkers of recent times and an influence on Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam declares that his life "revolved around a single goal, namely the establishment of Allah's Rule on earth" and restoring the caliphate.
Pipes offers this conclusion: What the terrorists want is abundantly clear. It requires monumental denial not to acknowledge it, but we Westerners have risen to the challenge.
And he's right. In today's news is this item (link here) from the Daily Telegraph of London. The article begins, The "war on terror", the resonant catchphrase of the Bush administration for the past four years, is to be discreetly phased out in favour of more nuanced language, officials signalled yesterday.
Is it? And what do they prefer?
Officials are instead starting to favour the rather less snappy phrase "struggle against violent extremism" as the administration puts increased stress on longer term initiatives - diplomatic, economic and educational - to defeat terrorism.
From the GWOT to the SAVE? It stinks. And the wording is suspect, because "nuanced" is the favorite word of the Left, along with "complex." Normally, I don't see the Telegraph as a Left-wing mouthpiece--that's usually The Guardian's bailiwick. But I'm having trouble believing that this could be right.
Given that the terrorists have a stated goal of turning the entire world into an Extreme-Islam-controlled caliphate with all non-Muslims either under the Islamist thumb or dead, it can hardly be productive to downgrade our fight from a War to a mere struggle. Why doesn't the White House go all the way and call it a "nuisance" รก la John Kerry?
I had thought the Bush Administration understood the stakes, but if they're headed for "struggle," then we're headed for trouble.
Maybe I should start saving up my money to pay for that special tax and a burkha...
Update:
Excellent post at Froggy Ruminations (here) on this topic. He takes apart a column (here) by Permanently Clueless Bill Johnson, who actually thinks Osama bin Laden cares what happens to our rights and liberties. One of Froggy's responses to Johnson: "Seeing as [OBL's] goal is to install a worldwide Islamic caliphate and to impose sharia law on the entire planet, I’d say he feels like there is still some work to be done."
Captain's Quarters has good analysis (here) of a paradigm shift happening in Egypt since the most recent terror attack there--one with encouraging results: "Osama and Ayman al-Zawahiri have miscalculated, at least in Egypt; their efforts have created Muslim moderates, not radicals."
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