And? This makes it OK because...?

...forget that they were a reaction to 300 years of Muslim attacks...

In recent months, terrorists and death squads in Iraq have increased attacks on civilians. Though the Pentagon says the sectarian violence is not tantamount to civil war, it concedes that the swelling sectarian strife has produced an upsurge in attacks, kidnappings and execution-style killings.

Before Umm Luma's death, the family says it had received two written threats in a year. Wrapped in the second was a bullet. The message was chilling.

"The time has come to bring down fair punishment on you traitors, you half men, by chopping off your rotten heads that sold religion, honor and the country to the occupation," it began.

"Where will you escape Umm Luma? Await the rage, the slaughter and the murder. Our swords are on the necks of every traitor, agent and coward."

There have been sectarian tensions in Iraq for decades, if not centuries, but the bitterness leading up to the violence was increased during Saddam Hussein's rule. The government of Saddam was run almost entirely by Sunni Arabs like himself, and he tended to favor this group over all others. Rebellions by Shiites and Kurds in 1991 just after the Persian Gulf War was met with a genocidal slaughter, more than 100,000 people from both groups were massacred.

Saddam also kept a tight rein on power by suppressing Iraqi civil society and civil groups, both democratic and Islamic.

We are not at war with Islam. But the most radical elements within the Muslim world are convinced that they are at war with us. Our fight is with the few, but our struggle must be with the many. For decades we have downplayed—or simply ignored—the hate-filled speech directed toward us, the monstrous lessons taught by extremists to children, and the duplicity of so many states we insisted were our friends.

The tragedies of 9/11 were not so much the result of an intelligence failure as of a collective failure to face the reality confronting us.

Throughout much of the 1990s, intelligence personnel were not quite forbidden to consider religion as a strategic factor, but the issue was considered soft and nebulous—as well as potentially embarrassing in those years of epidemic political correctness. Now, of course, religion may be discussed in intelligence circles, if bracketed with careful disclaimers noting that all religions have problems and that we are not bigoted toward any one religion. But what if a great world religion is bigoted toward us?

The ease with which today’s Americans of diverse faiths interact in social settings has allowed us to forget that our ancestors, in their homelands, massacred one another over the contents of the communion cup, or slaughtered Jews and called it God’s desire, or delivered their faith to their colonies with Bibles and breech-loading rifles. Some even brought their hatreds to our shores, but America conquered their bigotries over the generations—although even we have not vanquished intolerance completely. Still, for most contemporary Americans, religion has become as comfortable as it remains comforting. But human history is largely a violent contest of gods and the men who served them, and our age is the latest, intense serial in a saga that shaped our earliest myths and may predate the oldest scraps of folklore.

Religions change, because men change them. Fundamentalists insist upon an ahistorical stasis, but evolution in the architecture of faith has always been essential to, and reflective of, human progress. Certainty is comforting, but a religion’s capacity for adaptive behavior unleashes the energies necessary to renew both the faith and the society in which it flourishes. On its frontiers, Islam remains capable of the changes necessary to make it, once again, a healthy, luminous faith whose followers can compete globally on its own terms. But the hard men from that religion’s ancient homelands are determined to frustrate every exploratory effort they can. The Muslim extremist diaspora from the Middle East has one consistent message: Return to the past, for that is what God wants. Beware, no matter his faith, of the man who presumes to tell you what God wants.

Religions change, because men change them. Fundamentalists insist upon an ahistorical stasis, but evolution in the architecture of faith has always been essential to, and reflective of, human progress. Certainty is comforting, but a religion’s capacity for adaptive behavior unleashes the energies necessary to renew both the faith and the society in which it flourishes. On its frontiers, Islam remains capable of the changes necessary to make it, once again, a healthy, luminous faith whose followers can compete globally on its own terms. But the hard men from that religion’s ancient homelands are determined to frustrate every exploratory effort they can. The Muslim extremist diaspora from the Middle East has one consistent message: Return to the past, for that is what God wants. Beware, no matter his faith, of the man who presumes to tell you what God wants.

...the one debate that seems to elude even our best and brightest intellectuals is an assessment of why—not how—9/11 occurred. Efforts to defeat ongoing insurgent attempts to destabilize Iraq and Afghanistan must start with a debate on what is driving the nature of conflict in the region. Understanding why the insurgents hate America so much is equally important as knowing how the attackers of 9/11 were able to infiltrate our systems of protection.

Over the last two years, after countless lessons learned during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, Coalition forces now have a limited but clearer understanding of the drivers of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. A number of redeployed top military commanders recently pointed out that the true nature of this war is centered on economics, political will, culture, and religious ideology.1 Research indicates that many Islamic scholars concur with the following assessment: the insurgency is slowly developing into a war of ideas that will serve as a catalyst for the globalization of religious extremism if left unchecked. The analysis that follows focuses on the vital but poorly understood role that religion is playing in shaping the ongoing insurgency in the Middle East, an insurgency fueled by religious extremists.

By far the biggest challenge to the US push for democracy and modernization in the Middle East is not the insurgency in Iraq; it is the basic characteristics of Islam itself.

While the American government and the US military fight for democracy and freedom, radical Islamists and the insurgency point to religion and religious obligation as their primary source of motivation to defend Islam. When the United States invaded Iraq, the American government intended to strike a blow for freedom; however, the forces unleashed were considerably more complex. When the Pandora’s box of religion was opened, extremist ideologies brewing for the last 30 years came pouring out, ideologies that are now fueled by America’s continued presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Most scholars agree that there is nothing intrinsically violent about Islam as a way of life. Yet many suicide bombers’ only dream is to fulfill what they believe to be their destiny, namely to be a Shaheed (martyr).21 Obviously, all Muslims are not Hirabah; however, all terrorist attacks (in the Middle East) have been perpetrated by radical Muslim extremists.

The assassination of Anwar Sadat and the bombing of Khobar Towers are clear examples that the insurgency did not start with current US operations in Iraq. These past events serve to highlight years of planning by a then-budding insurgency, an insurgency that has systematically developed into a network of operations cells, financial backers, and communications outlets with the sole purpose of propelling the extremist agenda forward. Although tacticians and theorists have studied the techniques and procedures of the insurgents for years, the mainstream media and literature give minimal consideration to the very source of the extremist strategy—the religion of Islam.

The fundamentalists use a strategy that is simple and straightforward. It is rooted in Islamism; a totalitarian ideology that seeks to use Islam as a vehicle of power.23 Michael Scheuer’s recent analysis of insurgency doctrine identifies religious obligation as the central point on which al Qaeda’s insurgency doctrine was and is grounded. Osama bin Laden and a number of Islamist leaders and clerics have declared a “defensive holy war” against the United States. They are using an insurgency doctrine developed by al Qaeda that has been evolving for more than a quarter-century.24 The extremists’ basic strategy is to drape themselves in the mantle of Islam and declare their opponents kafir (infidels), thus smoothing the way for slaughtering nonfundamentalist Muslims.25 The common use of literal and highly selective interpretations of the Quran and other Quranic teachings allows extremists to establish direct influence over the global Muslim community.

The extremists have a grand strategy of their own. They publicly state their objectives for all to hear: to destroy and then rebuild a new Umma (community of Muslims), and spread their altered version of Islam, by any means necessary. This position is likewise supported by the Salafi-jihadists in Iraq, who see the Iraq conflict as part of their jihad, first and foremost, and second as a springboard for a wider regional conflict that has as its central aim uprooting the current political order in the region.26 This aim is often achieved through Arab-on-Arab attacks by the al Qaeda in Iraq network. But these attacks are mainly viewed as damaging to the insurgents’ cause. In this light, al Qaeda is largely considered more of a threat to the worldwide Muslim community. In a keen display of information awareness, al Qaeda in Iraq publicly justifies targeting Shi’ite Arabs based on their close cooperation with the occupation force and not on their supposedly “heretical” beliefs.27 Al Qaeda, therefore, attempts to justify the targeting of Shi’ite security elements on political rather than religious grounds. Meanwhile, local insurgents spread their extremist doctrine from tribe to tribe and mosque to mosque. They incite violence using the one bond the majority of Arabs have in common—Islam.

The 2006 NSS clearly reflects the wisdom of the religious lessons learned from the ongoing Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Political reform and governance—not unity of effort to prevent the fall of Islam—is the call to action. But with regard to Islam, the 2006 NSS is a vast improvement over the September 2002 version, in which the words religion and ideology were used just once. This suggests several questions, the foremost of which is this: If our leaders had better understood the religious underpinnings of the 9/11 attacks, as described in the 2006 NSS, before the invasion of Iraq, would we have proceeded differently? One point is certain: In the March 2006 release of the updated NSS, decisionmakers in the White House clearly demonstrated their ability to apply recent lessons learned in the Middle East to current national policy. They also correctly identify several key elements currently driving the insurgency in Iraq and the conflict in general throughout the region. Regrettably, the NSS still falls short in addressing religion as a source and catalyst for change, however. The need for a comprehensive religious assessment remains an issue that needs to be addressed in the current US strategy for the global war on terror.

I see rmadison has asssembled a string of quotes supporting his position, as can be done for just about any position.

Reminds me of what they do at JewWatch and Stormfront.

Now, if he juxtaposed these with comments taking another view and compared and contrasted, perhaps this would be a step up from quote mining.

But a nice try anyway.

By the way, about something on immigrants? That seems to be the hot issue lately.

Besides, how reliable is the "War College Quaterly"? Of course they are going to paint the Muslims with a broad brush.

Now, if he juxtaposed these with comments taking another view and compared and contrasted, perhaps this would be a step up from quote mining.