[lit-ideas] Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 12:55:05 -0800
Several here on Lit-Ideas have expressed their disdain for logic,
Aristotelian thinking, reasoning, etc. They may be interested in finding
that their views are shared by some notable others. On page 302 of The
Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright writes, about Al Qaeda trainees being
prepared for the 9/11 plot: "Their text was a 180-page manual, Military
Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants, which included chapters on
counterfeiting, weapons training, security, and espionage. 'The
confrontation that we are calling for with the apostate regimes does not
know Socratic debates . . . Platonic ideals . . . nor Aristotelian
diplomacy,' the manual begins. 'But it does know the dialogue of bullets,
the ideals of assassination, bombing and destruction, and the diplomacy of
the canon and machine gun.'"
Of course they were not initially told what they would be assigned to do,
but in general, "The targets were always Americans, either U.S., soldiers or
vehicles, but there were other, 'enemies of Islam,' according to the
handwritten notes of a student in an al-Qaeda ideology class.
1. Heretics (the Mubaraks of the world)
2. Shiites
3. America
4. Israel"
Their goals were (are)
1. Establishing the rule of God on Earth
2. Attaining martyrdom in the cause of God.
3. Purification of the ranks of Islam from the elements of depravity.
Lawrence
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