Unfortunately I think very few individuals in the media "get it." The jihadis are not fighting because "they hate our freedoms" (how superficial) nor even because the US does give some support to Israel (though that probably does inflame many Muslims who might otherwise be less sympathetic to the radicals).
The real reason they're fighting is that they want to force Islam on the entire world; in other words, Convert or die. Christianity is directly in the crosshairs because of the large number of adherents and because it is very widespread; in the case of other religions, there are either relatively few adherents (Judaism, for example) or they are highly concentrated geographically and therefore less important outside their home countries (Hinduism, Buddhism).
As for this only happening in more primitive times, we have after all been told that persecutions would come. There have been more Christian martyrs in the last hundred years than in the previous two thousand, even leaving out those killed by Muslims. Satan "knows that his time is short" and we can expect more persecutions to come and even increase until the Lord comes again.
Even so, come Lord Jesus.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=farc
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1930337/posts
“Dutch Woman Joins Guerrillas in Colombia (and now she hates it!)”
http://wral.com/news/national_world/world/story/2084603/ ^ | November 25, 2007 | JOSHUA GOODMAN
Posted on 11/25/2007 12:31:09 PM PST by navyguy
BOGOTA, Colombia
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1929829/posts
“US calls for proof hostages in Colombia alive”
Breitbart ^ | Nov 23, 2007 | AFP
Posted on 11/23/2007 7:11:46 PM PST by RDTF
Goosebumps reading your post Bruce. Each time I read of the savage ways Christians and Jews are being killed (pretty much daily around the world), my heart goes out to the friends and families of those Christians and Jews, who are true martyrs.