What Motivates Terroists?

"That motivation is their 1,400-year-old faith, said Scheuer, who closely tracked Muslim terrorists like Osama bin Laden over the last decade.
Indeed, the biggest myth going is that Islam has been “hijacked” by the terrorists. No, the only thing that’s been hijacked is the truth about fundamentalist, radical Islam, which makes holy war against infidels a sacred duty for Muslims.
The terrorists are getting all their violent ideas — the jihad, the martyrdom for virgins, even the beheadings — right out of their holy book. To pretend otherwise, to brainwash soldiers and cops on the home front into thinking the enemy is simply a ragtag network of random thugs and not part of a larger movement — is to set them, and us all, up for failure.
The almost endless stream of terrorists we’ve seen committing almost unspeakable acts of violence all over the world aren’t the irrational fanatics they’ve been portrayed to be. Hard as it is to believe, they have a calculated worldview based on religious and historical assumptions. They don’t act willy-nilly. These aren’t common street hoods who will mug their own mother for drug money. They are disciplined soldiers in a holy war. While their bloodshed may seem random, they have a purpose, a religious purpose, sick as it may be.
And they are relentless. Denying this unpleasant truth so we can feel nice and tolerant is politically correct suicide. We need an honest assessment of our enemy. Wishful thinking is not going to win this war. Jihadists have declared war on America and the West, yet we are reluctant to even identify them with the religion in whose name they kill us.
It’s time to take off the gloves. We must declare war on jihad — and all its participants and supporters — before they can make even deeper inroads."

The previous quote is from Michael Scheuer a former CIA analyst while speaking to a group discussing how to cope with the terroist threat of "radical Islamists". I took this particular portion of his speech out of context, because I believe he is articulating a point of view that must be understood by all our political and judicial leaders as well as the public at large. We are fighting a war of conflicting ideas, and I firmly believe that knowledge is power. It gives you the power to sift through the constant barrage of liberal propaganda we are bombarded with every day.

This war will not be over in a short period of time, as it is a war for the hearts and minds of people all over the world. Only the Good Lord knows how and when it will end.