A death cult
"'Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head"!' George Orwell, 1984
While al Qaida and their supporters are Islamic fascists I think divining Islam will not completely explain their motives, any more than understanding Christianity helped us know David Koresh or Jim Jones. We can only judge al Qaida by their actions. Their behavior, no matter how based, no matter how rooted, is totally unacceptable in a modern society. They are a death cult and they need to be destroyed.
In 1995 Aum Shnrikyo terrorists released sarin nerve gas into the Tokyo subway system. It's natural for us to ask why al Qaida and Aum Shnrikyo want to kill people but this is probably pointless; cults are notoriously difficult or impossible to understand. The 39 men and women of the Heaven's Gate Cult in 1997 killed themselves to ride the Hal Bop comet. Can we understand that? Do we need to?
A cultist cannot give us rational reasons any more than a mentally ill person can. Can you communicate in a rational way with a drunk? What will that profit you? Could Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, or Hess supply you with a coherent rationale for conducting World War II and killing six million Jews? No, of course not. These people were insane. We followed Hitler and his people to their last bunker and destroyed them, just as we need to do with al Qaida.
We may think we're being more understanding, more caring, more enlightened, if we do more analysis. When that's just being ineffective and ultimately stupid. Less intellectual. Leave the analysis to the historians after this war is won or reduced to a low level fire fight. I don't care how a rabid dog that is biting people got rabies, I only care that it dies. Not because I love its death, but because I love the lives of the people it is hurting. Is that hard to understand? al Qaida is a death cult. Kill the bastards.