the ad hoc wannabe attacks such as 07/07 (as far as anyone can tell) and this latest aborted "plan" (idea, pipe dream) ...

"Jihad" has many possible meanings ... it does not demand violence or killing ... it most often has referred to the personal struggle of living a good and proper life, being an honorable person. I suspect the Shia vs. Sunni, moderate moslem versus fundie moslem "true faith" conflicts represent more the jihad that we normally appreciate. IMHO, it's a lot less about us than we are willing to believe, however a "bulls eye" heartens many many moslems ... and others ... for many reasons ... having little to do with "terrorism sympathies"

There are interwoven issues of "identity politics" and of the impotence of the exiled (be they refugees, sanctuary seekers, economic refugees or those in political exile) with the warring factions within Islam and their geopolitical weight.

IMHO, much of this is not religious ... religious social institutions likely more often provide the vector and the matrix (as unions and antiwar groups do when they branch out into national politics and other issues) ... Yes, there are inmans who preach all sorts of inflammatory hate-speech ... so do many "respectable" american religious and political and public figures (watch much cable news commentary recently?) talk is cheap. most people do not pick up a gun or fashion a bomb or .... what is it about those who do?

Al-Qaeda's strikes on 09/11, on the embassies, on Istambul, in Madrid, in Morroco ... those appear to have be part of a geopolitical strategy ... they had purpose.

The shoe bomber, 07/07, this recent "plot" ... not so much ... These look like desperate self-aggrandizing/martyring actions by amateur wannabes and/or dupes (and possible the unbalanced)

ymmv

I wonder what's up in the mosques of Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Paris, Marseilles ...

We keep trying to make this current "terrorism" a theologic monolith ... imho, it's neither.

It really is all about the religion. The situation is going to get much worse, I fear, because these theocratic Islamic fascists, who have decided to hate us, have an entirely different world view. We look at the 'terrorists' through our Western filter. This is totally bogus. They really just want to kill us or convert us. Analogies to other religions' past blunders is also false. It is 2006. We have technology, intellect and some freedoms, these are properties that Islam does not embrace. It sucks to say it folks but the problem is Islam. Islam is what spawned islamic theocratic fascism. We in the west did not do this. We are not guilty for this particular set of sins. The Arab powers that be in the Mideast have enough money and clout to remake their lands into moderate Islams' version of Disneyworld. They chose otherwise. We in the West have at best a five year plan...Islamonuts are working on 50 to 100 year plans. I can't believe I am about to say this...We need Reagan and we have Bush lite. We are f__ked unless we go to DEFCOM 5 and stay there until America wakes up and understands the threat that is before us. They are for real, they really hate us and want to and do kill us, all the while using our best emotional propaganda techniques against us. And they have not stopped attacking us since 1979. If you dont believe this inconvenient truth check your reality sensors for the last time a Western (read: non muslim) terrorist group beheaded someone on live TV. Still think they think like us???

"If you dont believe this inconvenient truth check your reality sensors for the last time a Western (read: non muslim) terrorist group beheaded someone on live TV."

Well, I guess blowing up babies in Oklahoma City doesn't count since they weren't beheaded on television.

the west is not the only place that "foisted" values on others. everyone has, including muslims. the liberal viewpoint is that muslims want more liberalism. they do not. they want the world to be islamic. everyone wants the world to exist as their glorification. only westerners have learned to any extent that such thinking is wrong.

If wealth is due to plunder, then muslims should be rich. Africans should be rich. Wealth is not due to plunder. it's due to having values that enable you to live peacefully and cooperate. To be continually fighting, to die for glory and religion, to have a situation where when the king dies, it's the signal for the breakout of violence and civil war, this is normal for humans. in the west we have made it abnormal. but we are the only ones.

the war with islam is not based on civil or human rights. I have never heard of the muslim who wants such things except insofar as it enables him to reduce them. To have the right to make everyone live under islam and to destroy all else, that is the freedom that is sought. I have never heard a muslim saying that the christians (the jews were forced out decades ago) in an islamic country should have rights equal to muslims.

Regularly I see muslims on US TV critisizing us. when these people leave the studio, they are not assaulted. they may get some dirty mail. they don't lose their jobs or have their houses burned. Can you imagine an american or jew on TV in an arab or muslim counttry. The idea is unthinkable.

The liberal's attitude is equivalent to saying that the US should have left Hitler alone because there was segregation here. What liberals do not realize is that things will always be bad for human beings. It's all a matter of degree. western liberals who find the west insufficiently good so much so that they think muslims should destroy it should ask what kind of society will come after. It will not be a liberal society in any way or degree.

as for the idea that we are making things worse, well, the germans did not like it when we fought them. there is nothing that we can do to make muslims like us, except give in. and that will not happen