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I'm not really sure why you find the simple arguments so hard to comprehend.

These findings are consistent with Bin Laden's own articulations, who has repeatedly stated in online statements, video broadcasts and media interviews with journalists from all religious backgrounds that his war against the West is driven by what he perceives as the West's aggression, violence and injustice against Muslim lands - Chechnya, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc. The use of religious rhetoric by Bin Laden and others who share his ideology does not change the fact that their underlying motivation is political, not religious.
When pressed by al-Jazeera journalist Taysir al-Alluni on how he could justify the attacks of 9/11 despite Prophet Muhammad's prohibitions against killing civilians, Bin Laden ceased to invoke religious evidence and instead, invoked a politics of reciprocity based on his own logic and ideology. He stated, "It wasn't a children's school! Neither was it a residence...We treat others like they treat us. Those who kill our women and our innocent, we will kill their women and innocent, until they stop doing so" (Lawrence, Bruce. Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden. Trans. James Howarth. London: Verso, 2005, 119).

Far from being a fact-based movement, its leaders and thinkers propagate falsehoods and myths towards the discriminatory goal of silencing Muslims in America.
...
the hallmarks of this style: “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.”
...
Within their narrative of a hateful religion bent on the destruction of the West, opposing any form of Islam in America comes out as justifiable. However, it closes them off to the actual practices and beliefs of the vast majority of Muslims in the United States and the world. They are intentionally ignorant...
...
The Islamophobe is unable to deal with complexity. They do not mention the fact that numerous Muslims died as victims of the 9/11 attacks, that Muslims have been in the United States for hundreds of years, and that the vast majority of American Muslims condemned the attacks on civilians as contradictory to the tenets of Islam.

Behold! Today they are agreed to the meaning and definition of "terrorism" as acknowledged and agreed to by the Americans, that is, "unjust aggression against life and property." And such acknowledgment by necessity must apply to and include the Prophet who assaulted the lives, properties, and women of the infidels, who were living in secure and settled cities. As did his Companions after him. Such aggression, as understood by the West, is not justified; nor does such hostility agree with the Western notion of "freedom of religion." Thus our Prophet and his Companions and the righteous forefathers have all now become "terrorists."[14] [p. 58]

shafique wrote:Ah, I think it is sweet.

Raymond Ibrahim is the equivalent of loon comfort food. So here we have a young loon starting in the thread :
dubai-politics-talk/religious-basis-for-muslim-view-t42622.html

arguing that Al Qaeda is indeed waging a Holy War. Then starts two new thread to try and defend his view that the Crusades weren't Holy Wars, and now starts a fourth thread to basically counter what is in the first thread.

Classic loon smoke-and-mirrors tactics. However, the reply to the pseudo-arguments advanced by Ibrahim are in the first thread already - the original post and the longer one quoting Bin Laden.

It is pretty straightforward to compare the two and choose whether to agree with Mr Ibrahim's interpretations.

What is fascinating is that the young loon chooses to quote Ibrahim despite what happened the last few times he quoted him. We all laughed at the desperation of the loons at presenting a discredited proven loon as a scholar when he's just an "Islamophobic cash cow".
http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/01/raymon ... -cash-cow/

The last few times eh chose not to defend Mr Ibrahim's reputation - perhaps this time he will?

And, mind you, you don’t need to be an expert on the subject matter, just make sure to quote verses from the Qur’an out of context, cite Osama Bin Laden as the role model of Muslim behavior, bank on tired canaries like “Islam oppresses women,” and “Islam was spread by the sword,” and other washed out cliches, and voila!

As for the substance of your original post and Ibrahim's flights of fancy, we can easily compare his interpretations with the full quotes I gave. Interestingly, you have chosen not to do this and believe that Ibrahim's book is Gospel.

Whenever the Messenger of Allah appointed someone as leader of an army or detachment, he would especially exhort him to fear Allah and be good to the Muslims with him. Then he would say: "Attack in the name of Allah and in the path of Allah do battle with whoever rejects Allah. Attack!... If you happen upon your idolatrous enemies, call them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, accept it and stay yourself from them. [1] Call them to Islam: If they respond [i.e., convert], accept this and cease fighting them..... [2] If they refuse to accept Islam, demand of them the jizya: If they respond, accept it and cease fighting them. [3] But if they refuse, seek the aid of Allah and fight them." Thus our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue--one that demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice--and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually? Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: either willing submission; or payment of the jizya, through physical though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; or the sword--for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live. The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die. [pp. 41-42]

There you go again, quoting Ibrahim's book as if it was gospel is not going to change the fact that Bin Laden's explanation for 9/11 has been quoted in full and contradict Mr Ibrahim's spin that you quote.

Usamah bin Laden: Yes, so we kill their innocents, and that is valid both religiously and logically. Because some of the people who talk about this issue, some talk about it from a religious point of view...

UBL: They say that this is wrong and invalid [laa yajuz], and for proof, they say that the Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wasallam) forbade the killing of children and women, and that is true. It is valid and has been said by the Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wasallam) (in authentic narration)...

UBL: ...But this forbiding of killing children and innocents... is not general [mutlaqan] and there are other writings that uphold it [nusus ukhra tuqayiduhu].

Allah's (subhannahu wa ta'aala) saying:
"And if you punish (your enemy, O you believers in the Oneness of Allah), then punish them with the like of that with which you were afflicted..." [Qur'an (16):126]

The scholars and people of the knowledge [ahlu al-`ilm], amongst them 'Sahib al-Ikhtiyarat', and Ibn al-Qayyim (rahimahullah), and Shawkaani, and a lot of others, and Qurtubi (rahimahullah) in his tafseer, say that if the disbelievers were to kill our children and women, then we should not feel ashamed to do the same to them, mainly to deter them from trying to kill our children and women again. And that is from a religious standpoint, and those who speak without any knowledge in sharee`ah, saying that killing such a child is not valid and what not, and having full knowledge that those young men, that Allah has cleared the way for, didn't intend to kill children, but instead, they attacked the biggest center of military power in the world, the Pentagon, which contains more than 64,000 workers, a military base which has a big concentration of army and intelligence...

a hodgepodge of interviews, declarations, and exegetical arguments can be read as a sort of jihadist manifesto is debatable. While these writings provide readers with page after page of, for example, arcane legal debates over the moral permissibility of suicide bombing, they do not really get to the heart of what it is that al-Qaida wants, if it wants anything at all. Al-Qaida's nominal aspirations—the creation of a worldwide caliphate, the destruction of Israel, the banishing of foreigners from Islamic lands—are hardly mentioned in the book. It seems the president of the United States talks more about al-Qaida's goals than al-Qaida itself does. Rarely, if ever, do Bin Laden and Zawahiri discuss any specific social or political policy.

What al-Qaida does lay out, however, are grievances—many, many grievances. There is the usual litany of complaints about the suffering of Palestinians, the tyranny of Arab regimes, and the American occupation of Iraq. But again, legitimate as these complaints may be, there is in these writings an almost total lack of interest in providing any specific solution or policy to address them. Indeed, al-Qaida's many grievances against the West are so heterogeneous, so mind-bogglingly unfocused, that they must be recognized less as grievances per se, than as popular causes to rally around. There are protests about the United Nations' rejection of Zimbabwe's elections, the Bush administration's unwillingness to sign up to the International Criminal Court, and America's role in global warming. (To quote Bin Laden: "You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases, more than any other country. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and industries.") Zawahiri's many complaints include the mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, which he calls "a historical embarrassment to America and its values," as well as the United Kingdom's anti-terrorism laws, which "contradict the most basic principles of fair trial." There is even a screed against America's campaign-finance laws, which, according to Bin Laden, currently favor "the rich and wealthy, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts."

Most Americans would agree with many of these complaints. And that's precisely the point. These are not real grievances for al-Qaida (it does not bear mentioning that Bin Laden is probably not very concerned with campaign finance reform). They are a means of weaving local and global resentments into a single anti-American narrative, the overarching aim of which is to form a collective identity across borders and nationalities, and to convince the world that it is locked in a cosmic contest between the forces of Truth and Falsehood, Belief and Unbelief, Good and Evil, Us and Them.

Actually, I linked to the complete speech by Bin Laden where he asks the question why they didn't attack Sweden and gives the reason for 9/11.

Usamah bin Laden: Yes, so we kill their innocents, and that is valid both religiously and logically. Because some of the people who talk about this issue, some talk about it from a religious point of view...

UBL: ...But this forbiding of killing children and innocents... is not general [mutlaqan] and there are other writings that uphold it [nusus ukhra tuqayiduhu].

Allah's (subhannahu wa ta'aala) saying:
"And if you punish (your enemy, O you believers in the Oneness of Allah), then punish them with the like of that with which you were afflicted..." [Qur'an (16):126]

The scholars and people of the knowledge [ahlu al-`ilm], amongst them 'Sahib al-Ikhtiyarat', and Ibn al-Qayyim (rahimahullah), and Shawkaani, and a lot of others, and Qurtubi (rahimahullah) in his tafseer, say that if the disbelievers were to kill our children and women, then we should not feel ashamed to do the same to them, mainly to deter them from trying to kill our children and women again. And that is from a religious standpoint

shafique wrote:Again with your fantasies, young loon.

I'm at a loss why you think Ibrahim's 'hodgepodge' is gospel and think repeating your beliefs will disguise the fact you haven't actually addressed Bin Laden's explanation for 9/11.