Straight From the Jihadis' Orafices

It is clear to anyone who has been paying close attention over the past 6 (or more) years that al Qaeda is warring against the West because its belief system is incompatible with any society that is not subjugated to its interpretation of Islam. For those who still doubt, The Al Qaeda Reader (ed. Raymond Ibrahim) provides proof directly from the leaders of al Qaeda themselves.

According to Bruce Thornton, who reviewed the book,

"[Ibrahim] has organized these writings into two sections: theology, writings intended for fellow Muslims that ground al Qaeda’s war against the West in the traditional Islamic doctrine of jihad; and propaganda, writings meant for Westerners that cast bin Laden’s war as a just response to the depredations of Western powers."

Thornton concludes,

The Al Qaeda Reader, simply by letting our enemies speak in their own voices, explodes the popular delusion that Western crimes and policies are responsible for the “distortion” of Islam that al Qaeda represents. As Ibrahim writes, “This volume of translations, taken as whole, prove once and for all that, despite the propaganda of Al Qaeda and its sympathizers, Radical Islam’s war with the West is not finite and limited to political grievances — real or imagined — but is existential, transcending time and space and deeply rooted in faith.” This means that the fight will be long and hard, that leaving Iraq or creating a Palestinian state will not buy peace, and that the side that accurately understands its enemy and has confidence in its own beliefs will
ultimately triumph.