Azzam the American

Here's the post on CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/02/zawahiri.tape/index.html

The agenda of al Qaeda is clear: the world must convert to Islam or it will be destroyed. That's it folks! The parallels in history are clear-- do I need be crass enough to point them out? Is there any question now why al Qaeda must be stopped? I'm not saying we're doing it properly, or that there even IS a way to do it right... But the point remains valid: the world is not going to accept a one-world religion any more than I'm going to start eating battery acid.

Which again turns me to the issue of how these guys are able to inflict so much pain on the world. They are well-funded. Stop the source of money, you stop the ability to fund multi-million dollar terror campaigns. Again, this isn't so easy. It's easy for me to scold the bouffant Hummer-driving wingnuts for their oil-sucking ways. Fund a terrorist with your SUV! But that's an oversimplification that makes Creationism look like rocket surgery...

I remember the days when we had a poorly-funded but easy-to-find enemy: the U.S.S.R. Sure, we grew up scared to death that nuclear winter could rain down on us at any moment, but it was a shared fear we could all rally around.

The shared human experience is disappearing, along with our rituals and references that once bound us together as a race. Which would explain why many people are trying to get "out" of the human race altogether. I don't blame them! People find solace in purpose, and often religion becomes a purpose in itself. But what one loses in blind fanatacism is the humanity in the ritual and purposefulness of faith. What cruel irony. Perhaps that's not very clear, but these things rarely are.