Since we in the west seem to have an almost complete lack of understanding of Islam, Jihad, and the mental and linguistic framework with which Islamists view the rest of the world:

http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=34&idsub=158&id=6483&t=UK%3A+MI5+warns+of+a+'generation'+of+Muslim+terror

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/11/britains_growing_islamist_prob.php

How can we win a "War on Terror" which seems to be primarily Islamofascist:

http://ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2006-10-29-1.html

...without framing it as a "War on Religion"?

http://ornery.org/essays/2006-08-15-1.html

Here are some very appropriate analogies, drawn between Islam and other ideologies that went on to become potentially civilisation destroying -- even though only a "thin" minority of the populace espoused the fringe "extremist" view of the ideology!

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2002/11/05/majority_of_muslims_are_peaceful_-_so_what

So, how is it possible that the mainstream media completely miss the explosive potential of our present situation?  Because those subject to the murderous rage of the extremists "deserve it" (somehow):

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=why_the_left_doesnt_blame_muslims_for_muslim_violence&ns=DennisPrager&dt=02/28/2006&page=full&comments=true

In this article, I found what I consider to be the best brief explanation yet, of the fundamental difference between the "left" and "right" on this issue.  It applies accross the broad spectrum of observed behaviour and beliefs espoused by these camps, be it terrorism, abortion, military and police actions, etc:

In fact, one way to describe the moral divide between conservatives and liberals is whom they blame for acts of evil committed against innocent people, especially when committed by non-whites and non-Westerners. Conservatives blame the perpetrators, and liberals blame either the victims' group or the circumstances.

The truly sad fact is, there are presently over 1 Billion people living under the boot of Islam, who are being systematically lied to:

Could the answer be as simple as it is horrifying: For generations, the leaders of these so-called Muslim countries have been spoon-feeding their populations a constant diet of propaganda similar to the one that generations of Germans (and other Europeans) were fed — that Jews are vermin and should be dealt with as such? In Europe, the logical conclusion was the Holocaust. If Ahmadinejad has his way, he shall not want for compliant Muslims ready to act on his wish.

Oh, by the way; the above was written by a Muslim who grew up in Saudi Arabia and Somalia...

And mercifully, finally, even liberals are beginning to smell the stench...

Interesting Times: The librealist consensus

The transformation of liberals from crusaders for freedom to apologists for anti-American dictators was objectionable, but in the Cold War context might have been excused as a form of naivete. Communism, after all, billed itself as morally superior in Western terms, in that it supposedly represented the antithesis of cutthroat capitalism.

In our post-9/11 world, "liberals" have no such excuse. Unlike communism, there is nothing warm or fuzzy about militant Islamism, even in theory. These regimes combine everything liberals supposedly abhor most: intolerance, misogyny, force, fascism and theocracy.

How is it possible to explain, for example, that many of the same people who are shouting from the rooftops that George Bush is Christianizing America seem unconcerned about Iran's bid to Muslimize the world?

THIS BRINGS me to a failure that "liberals" and their new friends, the Baker-Hamilton-Gates "realists," have in common - a failure of imagination. One would like to think that if "liberals" and "realists" believed that the Iranian regime really represented a global threat, they would be much more exercised about preventing it from obtaining nuclear weapons. But the analogy to the rise of Hitler in the 1930s leaves them cold