[Restorer]

Islamists, in the present commonly-used sense of the term, haven't been around for centuries. They are really a fairly recent reaction to the obvious failure of nationalism, socialism and pan-Arabism in Arab society.

The Barbary pirates, OTOH, weren't really motivated much by Islam. You would, for instance, have found it very difficult to recruit suicide bombers from among them. The most successful ones were renegade Christians, and they were all pretty exclusively motivated by the old-fashioned value of greed.

[68skylark]

The Barbary pirates, OTOH, weren't really motivated much by Islam.

Yeah, I think I see how someone could make that argument. On the other hand, I'm one of those people who believes that cultures don't really change all that much over the years -- even over centuries.

Seems to me that the problems with piracy in the past partly came from failed, cruel, corrupt, dirt poor societies who would lash out at better and more vibrant cultures for sport and/or profit. And in many ways, much the same thing is going on today. These societies are always ripe for some carismatic or cruel leader who wants to hurt the west. And while the motivations may change on the surface (from profit to Islam), the motivations that are under the surface stay the same.