Al-Qaeda is not and never has been a coherent pan national fighting force.

They can be described as Islamist, jihadi or Salafi but that's about where any connection stops. This isn't a coherent enemy any more than all Christians are Catholic. An increasing number of young Muslims now regard resistance against the West as a way of life, a struggle that involves not just simply religeon, but economics, culture and Western Imperialism. One intelligence source underlines the problem when saying,

'At first we thought we were up against an organisation'

However the intelligence community now recognises something that their political masters refuse to acknowledge in public; they are not fighting an organisation or an army, they are fighting a mindset. And nobody has yet perfected a way to read minds.

There is no single organisation that can be decapitated and bought to a halt, the war should be re-defined as not against terrorism but against ideas and ideals. When looking at the subtle shift in the profiles of modern terrorists, something becomes apparent. Increasingly there are more and more educated people willing to carry out atrocities such as terrorist bombings. Most of the 9/11 bombers were reasonably well educated, if not rather well off compared to their fellow Saudis.

In Palestine recently, a young female newly qualified lawyer blew herself up and murdered Israeli citizens. She had everything to gain, yet she rejected it. Why should this be so? Islam is an inclusive religeon in some senses. It lacks the skin colour based racism of the West; as long as you are a Muslim you are a brother. But the message of Islam is essentially a socialist one, everyone is equal. An injustice against a fellow muslim half the world over is an injustice against your neighbour. It is a unifying force that transcends geographical boundaries, something that the West struggles to comprehend. There is a nation of Islam, even though it is often bloodily split with its own factions and infighting, just as any other nation experiences.

There is a new movement that is easily discernible, rampant capatilism vs rampant socialism. Radical Islam seems now to be taking the intellectual highground of the same old battles that have been fought over thousands of years, the peasants vs the overlords. But now it is global.

And strange bedfellows as it might seem, radical Islamists have much more in common with eco-warriors and anti-capitalists than they do with the pitiless heel of globalisiation. Increasingly, the wealth of the many is being squirreled away into the coffers of the few. Those that have money make more money, those that have no money serve those that do. Doesn't this ring a bell?

How many peasant revolts do we need to recognise that inequality breeds injustice which in turn breeds resentment and violence?

The current struggle that has been so sadly misrepresented as a war against terrorism is really nothing new. It still really boils down to something far simpler. A class struggle.

Between those that have; those that need the oil in the middle east and profit hugely from it, and those that have not; those that live in the lands where the oil is and yet see little or return for their enduring poverty. Religeon, terrorism, freedom however you want to phrase it, the term remains a euphanism for oppression, those that have against those that do not.

What we are seeing is indeed a war, but not against an abstractive nonsense such as terrorism but agaisnt a clash of cultures; inclusion vs exclusions. Most modern wars have this basis. We can ask the question what do the terrorists want, but this beggars the assumption that they want anything from us at all.

The real question should be why do they feel the way that they do? But if Islam is the perfect way to run a society then why are most Muslim countries in such a parlous stage now?

The obvious answer is to blame Western influence, their leeching of their resources (oil), and any laxing of traditional devotion to Islam is therefore in part to balme for the abject misery that much of Middle Eastern Islam currently suffers.

The most powerful weapon that the West possesses is the moderation of 95% of the worlds 1.3bln Muslims. This is being squandered on a daily basis, whereas we should be fighting to keep it; this is where the war between the clash of cultures will be won or lost.

yechydda,

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