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Sebastian Gorka

Sebastian Gorka Biography

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“The similarities between groups like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State and USSR are too numerous and fundamental to be ignored. Both groups are driven by a totalitarian vision. The followers of Karl Marx envisioned a world transformed into a workers’ paradise in which all other classes had been destroyed and only one party, the Communist Party, was in control. Today’s jihadists also have a universal vision. They look forward to a global caliphate in which all have submitted to the will of Allah and live as Muslims, the infidels and apostates having been slain. Both visions are exclusive, absolutist, and totalitarian. They are predicated on a ‘them or us’ vision of how the world must be. There is no possibility for peaceful coexistence with the ‘other'.”

TerrorismTotalitarianismAl QaedaIslamic State
Author:Sebastian Gorka
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“To this day, people in Washington can’t even agree about what to call this group. Some refer to it as ISIS—the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Others, such as President Obama, refer to it as ISIL—the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Yet in reality neither name is correct. In war, names matter. An intelligence preparation of the battlefield does not describe enemies capriciously. The way we talk about our foes is a function of the raw intelligence we put into the system, and the names we give them are a reflection of what they call themselves. We called the Third Reich the Third Reich because that was what the Nazis called themselves. The same was true with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. If we wish to be accurate, we should refer to our current enemy as the “Islamic State.” That is what they have called themselves since Abu Bakr al Baghdadi declared the caliphate reborn in the summer of 2014. And indeed such major publications as the Financial Times and the Economist refer to the jihadi group as IS.”

Islamic State
Book:Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War
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