Isn't there also something about restoring the umma and reversing the historic tragedy of Andalusia? Frankly, I'm no expert on the subject, but I think this analysis is largely bunk (except maybe insofar as one is restricting onself specifically to attacks on "US targets"). Jihadi ideology has a lot more to it.
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I think the focus on attacks against US targets is precisely the point.
It's important to recall why Mr. Scheuer needed to write his, by American standards, non-mainstream view of AQ. The common wisdom, only slightly caricatured, is that a group of fanatical Arab men looked across the ocean at America, noted how scantily clad Britney Spears generally is -- among other manifestations of US style freedom -- and decided to destroy our *way of life*.
*They hate us because of our freedoms* became the only publicly acceptable explanation for terrorist action against the United States. As tempting as this story is (because it manages, in one sweeping gesture, to make our enemies appear implacably sinister and ourselves brilliantly good) it's useless as an operational guide for counter-terrorist activity. If I'm with the FBI, CIA or what have you, I'm likely to do some pretty stupid things (as we've witnessed) if I'm looking to intercept people who "hate us because of our freedoms*.
AQ rhetoric about restoring ancient glories aside, it's crucial to understand the actually existing methods and motivations of the Jihadis you encounter wherever you happen to be. As you know, the Chechnya story is not the Sept 11 story which is not the Iraqi story which is not the slowly burning Saudi Arabian legitimacy crisis and so on and so forth. There are some linkages and there's been some international cross-pollination of ideas and methods but the specific circumstances of place and time are not eliminated.
The challenge for us -- particularly as people who (try to) maintain a soberly critical eye of US actions at home and abroad -- without falling prey to hyperbole or heavy breathing -- is keeping these multiple Jihadi movements clear in our head while resisting the urge to declare it all to be one large super-movement of neo-medievalists or, on the opposite end, assume it all to be the *global South's* revolt against the *global North*.
.d.