"Unfortunately, the U.S.A., Britain, the alliance, our government... are driven... by the obsession to eliminate the Muslims from the surface of the earth. Whether my colleagues, companions and Muslim brothers die today or tonight, every drop of blood will invigorate the Muslim movement."
So reportedly said the leader of the “British brigade” in explanation of why "his team" stands ready to carry out suicide attacks in Great Britain. He reportedly did so in a valedictory speech delivered at a graduation ceremony for future suicide-bombers held ten days ago at a training camp somewhere inside Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.
So, these future terrorists are merely responding defensively to the West's genocidal proclivities towards Muslims. I don’t think so.
But wait. To the government of which country was he referring in speaking of it as being his or rather "ours"? Since he cites it in addition to Britain, it could not have been the British one. Context, combined with his accent and halting delivery, suggests that it could only have been the Afghan one that he had in mind.
But are not members of that government also Muslims too? Is this young man accusing his fellow Muslims of wishing to eliminate all Muslims from the face of the earth? I thought that, while suicide bombing was permissible for Muslims in the eyes of jihadis like him, mere ‘suicide’ wasn’t.
Presumably, this graduating jihadi had missed out a course in elementary logic while attending his university of terror.
Or not. For, doubtless, whilst there, he and his fellow pupils will have carefully had instilled into them the doctrine of takfir. This holds that only those who practice Islam according to some particular very strict interpretation of it that they and their teachers favour are true Muslims. All others are kaffir, and fair game for adherents of that favoured interpretation.
Similar thinking in Europe among Christians at the time of the Reformation led to interminable internecine wars there between Protestants and Catholics. Those religious wars, however, were largely confined to members of different Christian denominations. In our more globalised age, and with a different new religion on the block, the scale of the battle has become more epic and seemingly now extends to all of humanity.
The real problem for those who do not share the same mind-set as this young man is how to persuade those susceptible to it that the West has no genocidal impulses towards Muslims. Or rather, the true challenge is to prevent the likes of him acquiring that mind-set in the first place. For, within its own distorted terms of reference, what that young graduate of terror said makes perfect sense and can be faulted neither on grounds of logic nor of truth.
The West and moderate Muslims are indeed engaged in a war against all like him who subscribe to any extreme version of Islam that holds that all who do not are enemies of that faith and merit either conquest, conversion or elimination.
Clearly the young graduate chosen to deliver the valedictory address was a star pupil of jihad. Doubtless, also, at this very moment, he and the fellow members of his brigade are on their way to an underground station near you….