The Islamist Extremist Agenda Of Evil In America

The Islamist Extremist Agenda Of Evil In America

For decades, a clear ideological current within radical Islamism has openly declares its ultimate goal: the complete overthrow of Western civilization, with the United States as the primary target. This is not a fringe conspiracy theory or a misinterpretation; it is repeatedly and explicitly articulated by the movement’s own leaders, ideologues, and operational documents.

The intellectual roots lie in the writings of Sayyid Qutb (executed 1966), the Muslim Brotherhood theorist whose book Milestones (Ma’alim fi al-Tariq) remains required reading in jihadist circles. Qutb described modern Western society, and America in particular, as a new jāhiliyyah (state of pagan ignorance) that must be destroyed before a global Islamic order can be established.

His follower Abdullah Azzam, co-founder of al-Qaeda, refined the doctrine: defensive jihad against Soviet occupation in Afghanistan must eventually become offensive jihad against the “far enemy” (the United States) that props up apostate Muslim regimes and corrupts the ummah with its culture.

Osama bin Laden’s 1996 and 1998 fatwas formalized this position. In “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” and the World Islamic Front’s “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” he accused the United States of three unforgivable crimes:

• Occupying Muslim holy lands (U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War)

• Supporting Israel and enabling the “massacres” of Palestinians

• Waging war against the Muslim world through sanctions and military dominance

  
  

These were not presented as grievances to be negotiated; they were casus belli for total confrontation until America is “defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s deputy and eventual successor, was even more explicit in Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner (2001):

“The jihad movement must realize that half-solutions and partial goals will not do… The crusade against Islam will not stop unless the Islamic state is established on the Islamic lands and the laws of Allah govern them.”

ISIS took the same logic to its extreme. Its English-language magazine Dabiq (2014–2019) repeatedly called for attacks inside the United States, describing American society as “depraved” and promising to “burn the crusader armies in Dabiq” while simultaneously striking the homeland to “make them taste what they have made us taste.” The group’s spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani urged Muslims in the West in 2014:

“If you can kill a disbelieving American… kill him in any manner or way however it may be… Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car…”

The goal was never mere retaliation; it was societal collapse. ISIS propaganda celebrated the idea that sustained terrorism would force the U.S. to overextend militarily, bankrupt itself, and fracture along racial and political lines—exactly the scenario outlined in al-Qaeda’s 2005 “seven-stage” plan recovered in Iraq, which projected victory by 2020 through bleeding America to exhaustion.

Beyond kinetic attacks, the broader Salafi-jihadist movement seeks to eradicate what it sees as America’s moral corruption: secular democracy, women’s rights, freedom of speech (especially about Islam), LGBT acceptance, and consumer capitalism. Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, wrote in the 1930s that Western civilization “has no value in the eyes of Islam” and must be replaced.

Modern jihadist preachers such as Anwar al-Awlaki (killed 2011) devoted entire lecture series to explaining why democracy itself is shirk (polytheism) because sovereignty belongs to God alone, not to voters.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamist organization that rejects violence but shares the same end-goal, openly distributes pamphlets in Western cities calling for the “destruction of Western capitalist hegemony” and its replacement by a caliphate. Its former British spokesman Anjem Choudary (convicted of supporting ISIS in 2016) routinely declared on television that “the flag of Islam will fly over 10 Downing Street and the White House.”

Evidence from Actions and Recovered Documents:

• The 9/11 Commission Report (2004) concluded that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the attack’s mastermind, sought to inflict maximum economic and psychological damage to “end American interference in Muslim lands.”

• Al-Qaeda’s training manual Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants (recovered in Manchester, UK, 2000) lists among its goals “bleeding the United States economically” and “spreading horror in the hearts of the enemy.”

• The 2015 Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attackers in Paris left statements declaring the attacks punishment for France’s “crusader” alliance with America and its secular values.

• The 2016 Pulse nightclub shooter in Orlando pledged allegiance to ISIS and specifically targeted a gay venue, citing the need to punish America’s acceptance of homosexuality.

• The Taliban’s 2021 return to power in Afghanistan was celebrated by global jihadist networks as proof that sustained resistance can force the United States to abandon even decades-long commitments—a template they hope to replicate elsewhere.

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Jihadist literature consistently frames the conflict as civilizational, not merely political. America is not hated solely for its foreign policy (though that is cited); it is hated for what it represents: a society where churches, synagogues, bars, cinemas, and pride parades exist side by side, where women can dress as they wish and criticize religion freely. In the words of Sayyid Qutb after visiting the United States in the late 1940s, America was “a reckless, deluded herd that only knows lust and money.” That visceral cultural revulsion has animated the movement ever since.

Islamist extremists—whether al-Qaeda, ISIS, their offshoots, or the broader Salafi-jihadist current—do not seek negotiation, coexistence, or even territorial concessions. Their own words, manifestos, videos, and actions over four decades demonstrate a consistent strategic intent: to inflict sufficient pain, terror, and economic damage on the United States that its society fractures, its global influence collapses, and its secular, pluralistic way of life is replaced by submission to their interpretation of Islamic law.

They have never hidden this objective. We ignore it at our peril.