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The Islamic terrorist groups were and are being cultivated and funded by Middle Eastern governments seeking political control, a counterweight to the military dominance of the West. The problem is that the religious nature of the groups' political ideology has turned people like bin Laden (hasn't "been LaidIn" a long time) against their former sponsors. So the Saudi's Wahhabism has come back to bite them in the ass. Look, my main point is that a lot of people here are confusing political ideology with religion. Sure, the radical Islam ("Islamism") has a religious form, but I really don't see how our present conflict is about theological differences. It just isn't. It's purely geopolitics.

Why do you insist on biting yourself in the ass. Everthing you said in this papragraph was essentially sound until the last line. Political foeces in the middle east are manipulating their uninformed "Fundamentalist" masses. You cannot leave religion out of this and are fighting a losing battle to insist upon it.

What, exactly, do you wish to bring religion into? My point is, and has been, that the poster of this post and many people on this forum wish to make the current conflict into a religious war, when in fact a religious war doesn't exist. Yes, the Islamic radicals care about religion - that's no reason we need to, except as it relates to the Islamics' desire to harm us. This I do agree with. What I disagree with is trying to relate the present conflict to historical conflicts between the West and Islam based on the superficial labels "West" and "Islam". The "West" and "Islam" do not mean the same thing today as they did 1000 years ago. Nor are the military conflicts today anywhere near the ballpark of what they were before.

Here's what it boils down to: people here want to feel comfortable with themselves and their country in the war on terrorism. The way they do this is by appropriating the very broad, very sweeping, very superficial terms "West" and "Islam" to say "The West was better than Islam before, so we'll beat them again." or "The West has advanced while Islam has declined, therefore we'll win." Of course, none of these comparisons actually say anything about how we'll solve the problem of terrorism, or any political question in the Middle East. But they are comforting thoughts.