War on Islam? Bah! Humbug!

Like a lot of people since 9/11, I've been wondering what makes Islamic terrorists tick. The recent arrests in Italy of three Algerian martyr wannabes again brought this question to my immediate attention. The Algerians wanted to pull off a series of attacks that would dwarf 9/11. Why? From the chatter on the news, blogs, and elsewhere, it seems that Islamic terrorists believe there's a war on Islam and the primary aggressor is America. I know, the idea's hilarious to rational Americans and Westerners, but is passionately believed by a huge segment of the Muslim world.

So what's the evidence for this alleged war on Muhammad's faith? Israel, and America's support for it, is exhibit A. No matter what you're talking about, it always comes back to Israel and the Palestinians. The mistreatment of the Palestinians is all the proof many Muslims need for the existence of an anti-Islamic crusade. The only problem with this scenario is that not all Palestinians are Muslims. A small minority are Christians, yet Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is never referred to as a war on Christianity. But even if all Palestinians were Muslims their occupation by Israel could hardly be called a war on Islam.

Palestinians probably make up less than 1% of the entire Muslim population. And their area of conflict with Israel occupies a negligible amount of the world's predominately Muslim land. So even if you believe that Israel is guilty of the worst atrocities against the Palestinians, such atrocities would have no impact on the ability of non-Palestinian Muslims to practice their faith.
Sure, many non-Palestinian Muslims feel a lot of sympathy for their co-religionists in the West Bank and Gaza, but they can't honestly claim that what's happening there is preventing them from being fully Muslim. Foam at the mouth all you want about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it's still flimsy evidence for a war on Islam.

Another complaint from radical Muslims is that Western, especially American, culture is taking over their culture. War on Islam! Not! It's true that American pop culture dominates the world, but that's because people want it. There wouldn't be a McDonald's on virtually every corner in virtually every city in the world if people weren't buying Big Macs and McNuggets. If people in Muslim countries want to listen to Eminem, then American record companies are going to supply them with Eminem cd's. It's not a war on Islam or any other religion; it's supply and demand. Muslim parents, and other adults, have only themselves to blame if their kids want American music, movies, video games, etc. Their children's desire exposes their failure to teach them Muslim values and that's an internal Muslim problem, not an American pop culture industry problem. And it sure as hell ain't a war.

Face it, terrorists. THERE'S NO WAR ON ISLAM. Across the Islamic world, from the Sahara to Southeast Asia, Muslims practice their faith without interference from Americans or any other Westerners. Indeed, the West bends over backwards to pander to Muslim sensibilities. Since 9/11, America has let in thousands of Muslim immigrants and George W. Bush still pushes his "Islam is a religion of peace" line. London Muslims are now building the largest mosque in England. In many circles, it's considered racist to even hint that Muslims might be responsible for their own problems, while hating America, the West, and/or Israel is seen as the height of progressive thought. But there's a war on Islam. No, there's a war BY Islam on America and the West, a war which we'd better wake up to before we lose our civilization to a Sharia dark age. Wake up, America! Wake up, Europe! The war is on us.