Dealing with the threat on a tactical and operational level through counterstrikes and capture has proven only marginally successful. Now military leaders want to combat it from a strategic standpoint, using informational warfare, among other things. A critical part of that strategy involves studying Islam, including the Quran and the hadiths, or traditions of Muhammad....

So far the conclusions of intelligence analysts assigned to the project, who include both private contractors and career military officials, contradict the commonly held notion that Islam is a peaceful religion hijacked or distorted by terrorists. They've found that the terrorists for the most part are following a war-fighting doctrine articulated through Muhammad in the Quran, elaborated on in the hadiths, codified in Islamic or sharia law, and reinforced by recent interpretations or fatwahs.

"Islam is an ideological engine of war (Jihad)," concludes the sensitive Pentagon briefing paper...."Strategic themes suggest Islam is radical by nature," according to the briefing, which goes on to cite the 26 chapters of the Quran dealing with violent jihad and the examples of the Muslim prophet, who it says sponsored "terror and slaughter" against unbelievers....

It also ties Muslim charity to war. Zakat, the alms-giving pillar of Islam, is described in the briefing as "an asymmetrical war-fighting funding mechanism." Which in English translates to: combat support under the guise of tithing. Of the eight obligatory categories of disbursement of Muslim charitable donations, it notes that two are for funding jihad, or holy war. Indeed, authorities have traced millions of dollars received by major jihadi terror groups like Hamas and al-Qaida back to Saudi and other foreign Isamic charities and also U.S. Muslim charities, such as the Holy Land Foundation....

The internal document explains that Islam divides offensive jihad into a "three-phase attack strategy" for gaining control of lands for Allah. The first phase is the "Meccan," or weakened, period, whereby a small Muslim minority asserts itself through largely peaceful and political measures involving Islamic NGOs -- such as the Islamic Society of North America, which investigators say has its roots in the militant Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslim pressure groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose leaders are on record expressing their desire to Islamize America.

In the second "preparation" phase, a "reasonably influential" Muslim minority starts to turn more militant. The briefing uses Britain and the Netherlands as examples.

And in the final jihad period, or "Medina Stage," a large minority uses its strength of numbers and power to rise up against the majority, as Muslim youth recently demonstrated in terrorizing France, the Pentagon paper notes.

It also notes that unlike Judaism and Christianity, Islam advocates expansion by force. The final command of jihad, as revealed to Muhammad in the Quran, is to conquer the world in the name of Islam. The defense briefing adds that Islam is also unique in classifying unbelievers as "standing enemies against whom it is legitimate to wage war."....

"Most Americans don't realize we are in a war of survival -- a war that is going to continue for decades...."

Related:

Here is an overview from The Iberian Reconquista. You may want to read all of it.

The Reconquista (Spanish and Portuguese for reconquest) was the military reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula by Christian rulers, conducted from 718 to 1492, following the Moorish conquest of the Iberian Visigothic kingdom.

The Portuguese Reconquista culminated in 1249 with the conquest of Algarve by Afonso III, setting Portuguese borders almost to their present location. In what became Spain, the process culminated on January 2, 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella, Los Reyes Catolicos ("The Catholic Kings"), expelled the last of the Moorish rulers, Boabdil of Granada, from the Iberian Peninsula, uniting most of what is now Spain under their rule (Navarre was not incorporated until 1512).

And here is a synopsis of the great naval engagement in the Mediterranean called the Battle of Lepanto.

The naval Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571, at the northern edge of the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth (then the Gulf of Lepanto), off western Greece. A galley fleet of the Holy League, a sometimes-flimsy coalition of Pope Pius V, Spain, Venice, Genoa, Savoy, the Knights of Malta and others, defeated a force of Ottoman galleys. It was the final major naval battle in world history to take place between exclusively oared-galleys....

The engagement was a crushing defeat for the Ottomans, who lost all but about 50 of their ships. It was one of the most decisive naval defeats in the Mediterranean.... the Ottomans lost their control of the Mediterranean and its tributary seas, especially in its western part. The Battle of Lepanto limited Ottoman ambitions in the Mediterranean, just as the Battles of Diu (1509 and 1538) had limited their ambitions in the Indian Ocean and the Siege of Vienna (1529) and the Battle of Vienna (1683) stopped their advance into Europe.

Cross-posted at the American Daughter Media Center.