The Evil of Global Jihad

From Tom Rogan, at National Review:

Nairobi’s Westgate mall is more than a retail center. It’s a social hub — a space for shared enjoyment and community celebration. It’s also a place for kids. In fact, a children’s event was taking place on Saturday. Then the jihadists turned up and turned it into a death trap. And that’s not all they did this weekend.

Rampaging through a mall.

Attacking a funeral in Iraq.

Blowing up worshipers in a Pakistani church.

This weekend has verified the identity of the global jihadist movement: a death cult that finds spiritual unity in the murder of innocents.

Let’s be clear. Westgate was attacked for two reasons. First, in its public character, the mall offered al-Shabab an opportunity to spread terror across all of Kenyan society. Second, packed with families, Westgate offered the terrorists hundreds of strategic pawns. In its killing sprees, al-Shabab seeks a new regional understanding: that its resolve is supreme above all others. That unless its adversaries yield, more Westgates will follow.

At a basic level, al-Shabab’s strategy is far from original. By definition, terrorism involves the deliberate cultivation of fear as a political tool.

Yet modern Salafi Jihadism takes this dynamic to an unprecedented level. It has the instinctive reflex toward unrestrained brutality. Gratuitous violence guarantees attention. Think about the Iraq war. The image of masked assailants sawing off the heads of bound and terrified prisoners is seared indelibly into our memory.

Of course, this raises a key question: How do the jihadists excuse their atrocities?

In the blend of theocratic absolutism and perverse consequentialism. From the jihadist perspective, their violence is justified in the service of God’s intrinsic will.

Grappling with this notion of ordained will is crucial. It affords us insight into the existential rigidity with which these terrorists regard the world. In short, Salafi Jihadists claim that the price of peace is our non-interference — they hint that our acquiescence will buy us our safety. They’re lying. Theirs is an ideology with a supra-national (and, as they see it, divine) pursuit — a global caliphate of absolute power.

Still more at the link.

And see Robert Spencer, "Jihad in Kenya."And Daniel Greenfield, "In the Name of Islam."