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If It Takes a Thousand Years: From Al-Qaeda to Hamas, How the Jihadists Think & How to Defeat Them
An inside look into the mindset of jihad, including firsthand interviews with some of the world’s most sinister terrorists.
“Jihadists—fundamentalist Muslims who murder, enslave, and rape infidels, are the monsters of our time. If you want to understand their mindset—and you should, for it is nothing like the Western mindset—read If It Takes a Thousand Years.” —Dennis Prager, co-founder of PragerU, nationally syndicated radio talk host, and author most recently of a five-volume commentary on the Torah.
“Jesse Petrilla’s If It Takes a Thousand Years is a vital contribution to helping us understand how serious our opponents are, how much they want to destroy our civilization, and how far we are from having a strategy to defeat them and ensure our peaceful survival. Every citizen would understand the challenge better if they read this pioneering work.” —Speaker Newt Gingrich
“Jesse Petrilla saw the jihadis up close when he served in Afghanistan. Unlike those who commanded our forces there, however, he isn’t afraid to tell the truth about the jihadi what they want, why they want it, why they think they’re righteous, and why they remain confident of ultimate victory even in the face of the most disastrous defeats. This is the book that everyone in the State Department and the Pentagon should be studying; instead, they’re studiously avoiding the truths Jesse Petrilla tells here. That doesn’t mean, however, that you have to make the same mistake. In If It Takes a Thousand Years, get the facts that the American political and military establishment is determined to avoid and deny, to their own peril—and ours.” —Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and bestselling author of The History of Jihad and The Critical Qur’an
“The attack on 9/11 led to over fifteen years of intense discussion about Islam, Islamism, Shariah, and related topics. Then, Americans seemed to bore of the topic and it disappeared from the news—even though the jihad yet continued and expanded. Now comes Jesse Petrilla, with his fund of firsthand experience, to remind and update us of this ongoing danger. His message is as necessary as it is unwelcome.” —Daniel Pipes, President of the Middle East Forum and Author of Israel Victory
During an interrogation in Afghanistan, when asked how long the jihadists intended to fight, a Taliban commander uttered the words, “If it takes a thousand years.” This chilling statement illustrates both how terrorists of this level operate and the generational approach they take when it comes to bringing destruction to the world.
The West is facing a determined enemy with a fundamentally different world view. Author and former Army Captain Jesse Petrilla provides unique insight into the jihadist mind, featuring interviews with Taliban and Al-Qaeda members just after their capture, interviews with international journalists and professors, warnings from European politicians, as well as experiences from travels throughout the Islamic world.
If It Takes a Thousand Years delves into the policies which have enabled our enemies both at home and abroad, providing positive solutions as to how America and the West can confront this threat and protect their way of life.
“Jihadists—fundamentalist Muslims who murder, enslave, and rape infidels, are the monsters of our time. If you want to understand their mindset—and you should, for it is nothing like the Western mindset—read If It Takes a Thousand Years.” —Dennis Prager, co-founder of PragerU, nationally syndicated radio talk host, and author most recently of a five-volume commentary on the Torah.
“Jesse Petrilla’s If It Takes a Thousand Years is a vital contribution to helping us understand how serious our opponents are, how much they want to destroy our civilization, and how far we are from having a strategy to defeat them and ensure our peaceful survival. Every citizen would understand the challenge better if they read this pioneering work.” —Speaker Newt Gingrich
“Jesse Petrilla saw the jihadis up close when he served in Afghanistan. Unlike those who commanded our forces there, however, he isn’t afraid to tell the truth about the jihadi what they want, why they want it, why they think they’re righteous, and why they remain confident of ultimate victory even in the face of the most disastrous defeats. This is the book that everyone in the State Department and the Pentagon should be studying; instead, they’re studiously avoiding the truths Jesse Petrilla tells here. That doesn’t mean, however, that you have to make the same mistake. In If It Takes a Thousand Years, get the facts that the American political and military establishment is determined to avoid and deny, to their own peril—and ours.” —Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and bestselling author of The History of Jihad and The Critical Qur’an
“The attack on 9/11 led to over fifteen years of intense discussion about Islam, Islamism, Shariah, and related topics. Then, Americans seemed to bore of the topic and it disappeared from the news—even though the jihad yet continued and expanded. Now comes Jesse Petrilla, with his fund of firsthand experience, to remind and update us of this ongoing danger. His message is as necessary as it is unwelcome.” —Daniel Pipes, President of the Middle East Forum and Author of Israel Victory
During an interrogation in Afghanistan, when asked how long the jihadists intended to fight, a Taliban commander uttered the words, “If it takes a thousand years.” This chilling statement illustrates both how terrorists of this level operate and the generational approach they take when it comes to bringing destruction to the world.
The West is facing a determined enemy with a fundamentally different world view. Author and former Army Captain Jesse Petrilla provides unique insight into the jihadist mind, featuring interviews with Taliban and Al-Qaeda members just after their capture, interviews with international journalists and professors, warnings from European politicians, as well as experiences from travels throughout the Islamic world.
If It Takes a Thousand Years delves into the policies which have enabled our enemies both at home and abroad, providing positive solutions as to how America and the West can confront this threat and protect their way of life.
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210 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 1, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 3, 2025
In the movie Cool Hand Luke, the Captain utters the famous line, "Some men, you just can't reach". When it comes to the Middle East and Israel, for most people, you simply can't reach them. They don't get it. From the United Nations to the US State Department, misinformation and prejudice preclude them from understanding the situation.
A person who genuinely understands the situation is former US Army Captain Jesse Petrilla. He’s a US army veteran who has come face to face with Islamic terrorists, spoken with them, and engaged with them. Here, he astutely articulates what is going on in relation to radical Islamic terrorism.
Often attributed to Albert Einstein, the observation that "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result" is undoubtedly true. A very recent example is former President Biden, who erroneously felt that a cease-fire with Hamas would bring a permanent end to war. Biden, like most of those in the Department of State, does not truly understand Israel's enemies.
In 1972, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was asked about the impact of the Paris riots of May 1968. He replied, "Too early to say." It was widely reported that the question was about the French Revolution of 1789, which had occurred nearly 200 years before. But over the last half-century, his reply to a question that was not asked took on a life of its own.
The fact is that China does take a long view of history. Their approach to the future is not in 4-year election cycles but rather hundreds of years in the future. That was articulately detailed in
The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower by Michael Pillsbury. He writes how China has a formal and detailed strategy to top the United States as a global superpower by 2050.
Another group that has taken a long view of history is jihadists. In If It Takes a Thousand Years: From Al-Qaeda to Hamas, How the Jihadists Think & How to Defeat Them (Bombardier Books), Jesse Petrilla has written a fascinating, albeit horrifying, exposition of how jihadists operate and their long-term game plan.
The title of the book comes from an interrogation of a terrorist by Petrilla in Afghanistan. He asked him how long the jihadists intended to fight. The Taliban commander replied, "If it takes a thousand years."
Petrilla has a deep and broad understanding of how Islamic terror operates. He's a former US Army captain, and the book includes insights from interviews he conducted with captured Taliban and Al-Qa'eda fighters in Afghanistan.
While he knows quite well how the Jihadists think, that has for the longest time not been the case with those in the US State Department and Department of Defense. These departments have long approached terrorist groups with a Western mindset.
The words thousand years in the title are not hyperbole. As Petrilla makes it eminently clear, jihadis live in a very different world of time than those in the West.
That is one of the misconceptions that cause US leaders to misunderstand their enemies completely. To the tune of trillions of dollars spent on losing battles with tens of thousands of lives lost. Those misunderstandings, which Petrilla articulates, have devastating effects on those who have to live with the results of jihadi terror. To which US politicians don't have to live with.
After spending several horrifying chapters laying out the jihadi threat, Petrilla provides many suggestions on how the US can go about countering the threat. Part of the problem is that the enemies of the US, who feel democracy is an anathema to their worldview, use democratic tools to further their goals.
Many of his suggestions require bold steps, which the Biden, Obama, and other administrations were incapable of taking. Not only was the Biden administration oblivious to the threat, but it also supported many enemies of the US.
This book is a wake-up call for those who think that organizations such as Hamas and Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham can be negotiated with. Petrilla writes not from the ivory towers of academia but as someone who has spent significant time face-to-face with these terrorists.
This is a unique, eye-opening book from a writer who truly and intimately understands the subject. The future is not so bright unless books like this are on the Department of State's reading list. And while the jihadis are willing to wait a thousand years, not only do they not have a concept of time, but they may also be significantly overstating the time it takes for them to reach their goals.
A person who genuinely understands the situation is former US Army Captain Jesse Petrilla. He’s a US army veteran who has come face to face with Islamic terrorists, spoken with them, and engaged with them. Here, he astutely articulates what is going on in relation to radical Islamic terrorism.
Often attributed to Albert Einstein, the observation that "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result" is undoubtedly true. A very recent example is former President Biden, who erroneously felt that a cease-fire with Hamas would bring a permanent end to war. Biden, like most of those in the Department of State, does not truly understand Israel's enemies.
In 1972, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was asked about the impact of the Paris riots of May 1968. He replied, "Too early to say." It was widely reported that the question was about the French Revolution of 1789, which had occurred nearly 200 years before. But over the last half-century, his reply to a question that was not asked took on a life of its own.
The fact is that China does take a long view of history. Their approach to the future is not in 4-year election cycles but rather hundreds of years in the future. That was articulately detailed in
The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower by Michael Pillsbury. He writes how China has a formal and detailed strategy to top the United States as a global superpower by 2050.
Another group that has taken a long view of history is jihadists. In If It Takes a Thousand Years: From Al-Qaeda to Hamas, How the Jihadists Think & How to Defeat Them (Bombardier Books), Jesse Petrilla has written a fascinating, albeit horrifying, exposition of how jihadists operate and their long-term game plan.
The title of the book comes from an interrogation of a terrorist by Petrilla in Afghanistan. He asked him how long the jihadists intended to fight. The Taliban commander replied, "If it takes a thousand years."
Petrilla has a deep and broad understanding of how Islamic terror operates. He's a former US Army captain, and the book includes insights from interviews he conducted with captured Taliban and Al-Qa'eda fighters in Afghanistan.
While he knows quite well how the Jihadists think, that has for the longest time not been the case with those in the US State Department and Department of Defense. These departments have long approached terrorist groups with a Western mindset.
The words thousand years in the title are not hyperbole. As Petrilla makes it eminently clear, jihadis live in a very different world of time than those in the West.
That is one of the misconceptions that cause US leaders to misunderstand their enemies completely. To the tune of trillions of dollars spent on losing battles with tens of thousands of lives lost. Those misunderstandings, which Petrilla articulates, have devastating effects on those who have to live with the results of jihadi terror. To which US politicians don't have to live with.
After spending several horrifying chapters laying out the jihadi threat, Petrilla provides many suggestions on how the US can go about countering the threat. Part of the problem is that the enemies of the US, who feel democracy is an anathema to their worldview, use democratic tools to further their goals.
Many of his suggestions require bold steps, which the Biden, Obama, and other administrations were incapable of taking. Not only was the Biden administration oblivious to the threat, but it also supported many enemies of the US.
This book is a wake-up call for those who think that organizations such as Hamas and Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham can be negotiated with. Petrilla writes not from the ivory towers of academia but as someone who has spent significant time face-to-face with these terrorists.
This is a unique, eye-opening book from a writer who truly and intimately understands the subject. The future is not so bright unless books like this are on the Department of State's reading list. And while the jihadis are willing to wait a thousand years, not only do they not have a concept of time, but they may also be significantly overstating the time it takes for them to reach their goals.
December 15, 2025
Sometimes its really easy to rate a book, most times because the book was amazing and I loved it. In this case, the opposite was true. A 1-star rating and a brief review to indicate that Mr. Petrilla could have used a few extra revisions on his manuscript or a better editor, both would have helped me as a reader focus on his message rather than the delivery.
Even with that, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the book given his premise, but I wouldn't have found it as hard to read.
I read this to satisfy prompt 39 of the 52 Book Club 2025 Challenge, "has an epigraph." I did receive this book in a book exchange as a gift, I'm grateful for the thought, even if I couldn't ever recommend this book to anyone else.
Even with that, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the book given his premise, but I wouldn't have found it as hard to read.
I read this to satisfy prompt 39 of the 52 Book Club 2025 Challenge, "has an epigraph." I did receive this book in a book exchange as a gift, I'm grateful for the thought, even if I couldn't ever recommend this book to anyone else.
October 14, 2025
Frightening But True
The author has many years interviewing Islamic terrorist and to see how they have infiltrated our education, judicial, and political system by leftist who want to protect every ideology except the Constitution and America. Please read this book, send letters and emails to your Senators and Congressmen and women and tell them to stop the Islamic invasion.
The author has many years interviewing Islamic terrorist and to see how they have infiltrated our education, judicial, and political system by leftist who want to protect every ideology except the Constitution and America. Please read this book, send letters and emails to your Senators and Congressmen and women and tell them to stop the Islamic invasion.
October 17, 2025
Great insight into Islam as a false religion and regression to a 7th century culture. Pay attention!!!
November 18, 2025
Racist nonsense
October 28, 2024
Fantastic book about the enemies of the west
I tell.my muslim doctor friends I'm not worried about them I'm worried about their children becoming radicalized. All Muslim migration should be stopped in America period. I never thought I would.live to see.politicians courting the "muslim" vote in this country. Its shameful how.many have been let in. Look at dearborn michigan! It's happening on the outskirts of.dallas where I live as well. Huge muslim school opened and they are trying to take over the city council and implement sharia...in a texas.town!
I tell.my muslim doctor friends I'm not worried about them I'm worried about their children becoming radicalized. All Muslim migration should be stopped in America period. I never thought I would.live to see.politicians courting the "muslim" vote in this country. Its shameful how.many have been let in. Look at dearborn michigan! It's happening on the outskirts of.dallas where I live as well. Huge muslim school opened and they are trying to take over the city council and implement sharia...in a texas.town!
December 29, 2024
Very thought provoking, first hand accounts about the truly different mindset of our enemies.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews