How Radical Islamists Will Take Over the World. Not.

"The plan [to destroy America] is going ahead and, God willing, it is being implemented…. If God's help is with us, this will happen within a short period of time; keep in mind this prediction."

--Taliban leader Mohammed Omar in a BBC radio interview on November 15, as his forces in Afghanistan collapsed.

* * *

Among a trove of documents seized by Afghanistan's Northern Alliance in its recent conquest of Kabul were the following minutes of a meeting held by a shadowy group known to American intelligence as the International Conspiracy of Almost Insanely Radical Islamic Militants, or Al Patuti. A copy was provided to National Journal by an intelligence source and is here printed for the first time. The meeting is believed to have been held in the northwestern region of Pakistan as recently as mid-November. The CIA is attempting to identify the participants, for whom pseudonyms may have been used. This document has been lightly edited and shortened for space reasons.

* * *

The meeting was called to order at 10 a.m.

MULLAH KURLI: Welcome! I greet you in the name of God! Our cause is just and our spirit firm. God willing, great triumph shall soon be ours. This month, we welcome the return of Sheik Ibn Mo, whose gallstones, thanks be to God, are much improved. We greatly look forward to the science committee report that, we understand, Sheik Ibn Mo has brought for presentation today. For his committee's hard work on this important project, we offer our humble thanks. Now, as is our custom, let us rise and perform the Al Patuti salute.

(The assembled thereupon rose. They put their right foot in, they put their right foot out, they put their right foot in, and they shook it all about.)

MULLAH KURLI: Praise be to God, that is what it's all about! The chair now takes up old jihads and fatwas. Imam Lari, please report.

IMAM LARI: Yes, peace be upon you. We now have outstanding a total of 4,329 active jihads and 82,919 fatwas. This month marks the 2,617th consecutive month in which no Jew-Crusader nation has fallen to our mighty siege. However, it is our expectation that the United States will be forced to capitulate any day now. The infidel bastion is far weaker than it appears, thanks be to God.

MULLAH KURLI: Please speak of our progress in Afghanistan.

IMAM LARI: Our forces have lost control over most of the country and are rapidly disintegrating elsewhere. Our warriors are defecting as quickly as possible, and celebrating as they do so. Thus it may be justly said that we are still working out some bugs in our strategy. However, teething pains and wrinkles of this sort are to be expected. The tide will soon turn. America is in its last throes.

MULLAH KURLI: We thank you. Have we any new jihads and fatwas?

IMAM LARI: Yes, this month we launch 274 new jihads and 4,333 new fatwas. The full list of those who are newly condemned by God will be printed and made available soon after this meeting. I will not try to list them all. Let me simply say that among those whom God calls upon us to strike down are Tony Blair, Alan Greenspan, Kofi Annan, Donna Karan, U.S. Rep. Bob Stump, the Olympics, automobiles, Microsoft PowerPoint, everyone listed in the metropolitan Dallas white pages, the Washington Wizards, the original cast of Cats, all Star Trek shows after the classic first series, and the Jew-Crusader Britney Spears, who corrupts the minds of our youth.

ALL: Death to the infidel Britney Spears!

MULLAH KURLI: Does not a fatwa against the Washington Wizards seem a little gratuitous?

IMAM LARI: I would further like to add to this list of the condemned my neighbor Abdullah, who prays too infrequently and has not paid me for the eight sheep I sold him last year. God has shown him to be an enemy of all Islam!

(A fatwa was unanimously passed declaring Mullah Lari's neighbor Abdullah an enemy of all Islam.)

MULLAH KURLI: Sheik Ibn Mo, we turn to you now for the special report of the Committee on Pure Islamic Science and Technology. We trust you will not use Microsoft PowerPoint.

SHEIK IBN MO: God be with us. It is my privilege to report on a particularly important aspect of our jihad. As you all know, we seek to establish the rule of pure Islamic law throughout the world. This will require, initially, destroying America, as we have set out to do, and so we must master the Jew-Crusader methods of science and technology and then turn them to the advantage of God. However, we must also understand that bringing about the collapse of the Great Satan, as we shall soon do by God's grace, is far from sufficient. Rather, we must return Islam to the glory it attained centuries ago, when it was the world's most advanced civilization. To that end, reinvigorating the great traditions of Islamic science and learning is essential.

It must be said, praise God, that we have made promising first steps toward this goal. We have banned formal education among half the population, and we require the other half to engage primarily in the study and memorization of sacred texts. Even these great steps forward, however, have not yet reproduced the scientific successes of the infidel. Our committee has concluded that, to close the gap, it may be necessary to abolish arithmetic.

MULLAH KURLI: My brother Ibn Mo, please inform us of the thinking behind this bold Islamic concept.

SHEIK IBN MO: With gratitude and pleasure. Arabic numerals are, of course, no stranger to God, for they are a great invention of Islam. Originally these numbers served the faith, as they were used to enumerate the sayings of the prophet and the verses of the holy text. Arithmetic, in those days, also trod faithfully on the pathway of God. More recently, however, arithmetic has increasingly found other, more profane uses. It has turned the heads of our people and become a leading tool of the infidels and their materialism. Long division, in particular, has become a weapon of subversion against Islam.

MULLAH KURLI: Has the committee considered whether it may indeed be necessary to ban numbers outright? We might start with the largest ones and work our way down. Small numbers help our people conduct their daily affairs, but large ones do only mischief and are not necessary for men whose minds are turned toward pure things. Well, we thank you in God's name. Please, before you sit down, also favor us with a report on your committee's biomedical research projects.

SHEIK IBN MO: Yes, gladly. As you know, we have many experiments going on. Most promising is the search for a pure Islamic cure for cancer. Our scientists believe that we are drawing close. They have recited each verse of the sacred Koran to laboratory rats in which tumors have been chemically induced, and by this means they have substantially narrowed the list of verses that are most effective. When we have further narrowed this list and isolated the most therapeutic passages of holy text, we will begin human trials.

MULLAH KURLI: God be praised. Truly we rush to glory! I turn now to Mullah Shemp. I understand he would like to say a few words on the status of our ecumenical outreach project.

MULLAH SHEMP: Praise be to God. As you know, we have deemed it essential to win the loyalty and support of those 85 percent or more of the world's Muslims whose faith, alas, is not yet as pure and fervent as our own. It is these so-called moderates, with their pious hearts and bourgeois aspirations, who waver between our great cause and the godless materialism of the West. Thus our outreach project is considering, as a matter of great urgency, how to broaden our movement's appeal to such people. Most of us concur that the best method is to threaten to slash their faces with razors, but some of us feel that dousing them with acid would be more effective, and a few favor both measures. We also disagree on whether to denounce them as infidels or as apostates. We expect to resolve this issue and report back soon.

MULLAH KURLI: This project shows great promise. Please carry on. With such stratagems on our side, victory cannot fail to find us. In conclusion, I would note that the destruction of America is in sight! To date, we have demolished approximately 10 million square feet of Jew-Crusader office space. That leaves the infidel with only 10.5 billion square feet of commercial office space. At this rate, God shall bring us victory in little over 1,000 years.

(The secretary was instructed to copy down these numbers and record them promptly, as large numbers will be banned next month.)