[68skylark]

On the Muslim side. Islamists have been at war with the US for at least 15 years.

I think your point is well made, except that I'd say it goes back further. I don't know enough history to say when the war began. I know that as soon as our country won freedom from Europe in 1783, we started having trouble at once. What we now call 'terrorism' used to be called 'piracy,' and it started right away with ships being hijacked and their crews often held for ransom if not tortured or killed. As I understand it, this was one of the main reasons the states came together, and our armed forces (especially the Navy) were re-formed. We've been fighting this war a long time.

[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.

[Restorer]

I know that as soon as our country won freedom from Europe in 1783, we started having trouble at once. What we now call 'terrorism' used to be called 'piracy,' and it started right away with ships being hijacked and their crews often held for ransom if not tortured or killed.

We had trouble before then, too, but it was a problem for the British government, not for the colonial ones.

The Brits, French and others had paid "tribute" money to the pirates for decades, not because their navies weren't capable of defeating the pirates, but because paying "tribute" was cheaper than sending the Navy.

Which, of course, just encouraged the pirates.