Wretchard:
I’m afraid you are asking the impossible when you bid us “…examine Jihad from a non-religious perspective”. These brutal Islamist scum are wrapped about with Islam. It permeates their lives. By severing an Infidel’s neck they are following Muhammad’s instructions found in the Quran. I have not reached any conclusion as to if they truly believe they are committing these atrocities for supposedly holy purposes or if they merely use their devotion to this barbaric religion as a tool to excuse their criminal actions. No matter; extorting and terrorizing the infidels is also following Muhammad’s teachings as found in the Quran. Even greedy, violent, narco-marxist guerillas in Columbia don’t make a habit of beheading helpless people on camera and distributing the video on the World Wide Web. As businesses practice for kidnappers this is a self defeating strategy. Instead of terrorizing governments, companies and loved ones into producing large ransoms for hostages, it will encourage all non-Muslims to avoid the entire nation and dry up the pool of potential easy and profitable victims. Why then would the Islamists do this? I believe the only answer is to terrorize the infidels, to pursue Jihad across the electronic world the decadent kuffar has made available to them. That they can extort a profit while doing so is gravy for the goose, but is secondary to Jihad for Allah!