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Islam divides the world into two parts. The part governed by sharia, or Islamic law, is called the Dar al-Islam, or House of Submission. Everything else is the Dar al-Harb, or House of War, so called because it will take war—holy war, jihad—to bring it into the House of Submission. Over the centuries, this jihad has taken a variety of forms. Two centuries ago, for instance, Muslim pirates from North Africa captured ships and enslaved their crews, leading the U.S. to fight the Barbary Wars of 1801–05 and 1815. In recent decades, the jihadists’ weapon of choice has usually been the terrorist’s bomb; the use of planes as missiles on 9/11 was a variant of this method.

What has not been widely recognized is that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie introduced a new kind of jihad. Instead of assaulting Western ships or buildings, Kho­meini took aim at a fundamental Western freedom: freedom of speech. In recent years, other Islamists have joined this crusade, seeking to undermine Western societies’ basic liberties and extend sharia within those societies.

The cultural jihadists have enjoyed disturbing success. Two events in particular—the 2004 assassination in Amsterdam of Theo van Gogh in retaliation for his film about Islam’s oppression of women, and the global wave of riots, murders, and vandalism that followed a Danish newspaper’s 2005 publication of cartoons satirizing Mohammed—have had a massive ripple effect throughout the West. Motivated variously, and doubtless sometimes simultaneously, by fear, misguided sympathy, and multicultural ideology—which teaches us to belittle our freedoms and to genuflect to non-Western cultures, however repressive—people at every level of Western society, but especially elites, have allowed concerns about what fundamentalist Muslims will feel, think, or do to influence their actions and expressions. These Westerners have begun, in other words, to internalize the strictures of sharia, and thus implicitly to accept the deferential status of dhimmis—infidels living in Muslim societies.

Call it a cultural surrender. The House of War is slowly—or not so slowly, in Europe’s case—being absorbed into the House of Submission.

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ORIGINAL: Archer

So the "West" created the Moors and issued the Edict to spread Islam with a convert or die mentality?
The original cause was the fact that Islamic Faith made the same choice that Christianity made many years before.
After that the seeds of resentment simply keep sprouting on both sides for the most recent slap.

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ORIGINAL: Bethnai

In 1953, at the request of England, the US staged a coup to overthrow Mossedegh in Iran.  Why? Because Mossedegh was trying to nationalize the oil.  The problem was that the Iranians had created a constitution much earlier and Mossedegh had been elected by the people.  Talk about some pissed off people.  It brought about the 1979 Islamic Revolution.  Khomeini made a comeback.  That is a way extreme Shiite sect. So extreme that Iran today no longer wants to export its religion, even in Iraq, because of the severe economic consequences. 

The Wahabbi sect, from Saudi Arabia, had been busy lobbying in the US. People submitted to the almighty petro-dollar. Even universities played a part. Everybody got cash. The majority of the muslims in the US and the West are Sunni. This started in the 1970's.  All that was required of the major corporations were that they could not hire anyone who was Jewish, and like it or not it still rolls today.

The Arc of Islam theory finally got to be set in motion during the 1980's, the US willingly, knowingly, and consciously used Wahhabism to create a jihad to break the Soviet Union. Saudi Arabia met the US dollar for dollar utilizing what is referred to as the Peshawar Seven.  By the way all of that couldn't have been achieved without the aid of Pakistan.

People can stand around and shred the Quran.  When people start talking about liberty it usually is the liberty to divide conquer and take whatever someone else has, oil for instance.

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ORIGINAL: BrineEyes

for those of you that see the threat as a threat and aren't going to bantr about if we deserve the fire while the house is burning down

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ORIGINAL: Level

Motivated variously, and doubtless sometimes simultaneously, by fear, misguided sympathy, and multicultural ideology—which teaches us to belittle our freedoms and to genuflect to non-Western cultures, however repressive—people at every level of Western society, but especially elites, have allowed concerns about what fundamentalist Muslims will feel, think, or do to influence their actions and expressions.

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ORIGINAL: thornhappy

I'm personally tired of seeing the demons of multiculturalism being waved about any time someone gives an explanation of another's culture and its good & bad points.  There's good and bad about any culture - no one's perfect or pure of heart.

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The second thing I'm tired of is "elites".  Most folks in congress, including the ones on the right who frequently rail about the evil doings of the elites, are elites themselves, having gone to prominent law schools.  Fer crying out loud, Bush 43 is an elite (Andover, Harvard, Yale).

thornhappy

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ORIGINAL: BrineEyes

Pardon the mixed metaphor.  People who blame radical jihadism on economic imperialism are misssin the point that these are still people that want to kill them.  It's never resonable to let somone kill you: only honorable, and honor isn't worth the freedoms of our civilization.  Personally I'd argue our responabaility, but the shear blindness of the argument allways suprises me.

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ORIGINAL: Archer

We talk about their convert or die they talk about us having a new crusade. We talk about religious imperialism they talk about economic imperialism. I'm simply saying that it's all about who got slapped hardest last.
They see it from their persepctive we see it from ours.

My point is that unless and until folks say OK time to consider this a reset moment it will continue.

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
I'm wondering how you would argue away the west's responsibility for the terrorism we have formented when it is western powers that were dabbling in the ME, not the ME countries dabbling in the west.

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
And no, people who hold my view are not missing the point. Imperialism and macho politics is what created the terrorist problem and more macho politics only creates the next generation of terrorists, this is not a theory, it is demonstrably true.

What defeats terrorism is to divide a host population from the terrorists and you do that by giving the host population hope in the future. Of course there is always the opposite view of fighting terrorism like Israel does which takes hope away from people, replaces it with despair and regularly breeds another generation of terrorists.