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Ben,
While what you say may be true, why is it that only the radical muslim movement gets all the air? If the majority of Islam is peaceful, then why to they stand idle and allow these thugs hijack their religion and run it into the ground?
Also, your first sentence borders on moral equivalency. Where is it that Chrisitians or Jews are beheading non-believers? When you look at the world stage, who is bombing in the name of Christianity or Judaism?
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There are genuine grievances that the third world has that is partly due to the disgusting way the West operates. It isn't hard to sympathise with someone who acts against an actor that effectively oppresses you even if you disagree with their reasoning or methods. For example, if you were a slave and were freed by a rival slave owner who killed your owner, would you really complain? Radical Islam is a product of socio-economic conditions, much like how Nazism was in Germany in the 30s. The fact Islam is the chosen doctrine that has been manipulated is in my mind irrelevent.
Manipulated Christian and Jewish doctrine has been used many times over the course of history to justify a great many atrocities. The Crusades, the actions of the KKK, the massacre of the Huguenots, religious war in the Balkans when Yugoslavia collapsed, anti-semitism on the grounds that they could have prevented Jesus's death (obviously forgetting Jesus was a Jew), I could go on. In the present day, Israel justifies its actions on defending the Jewish race and religion, even though what they are really saying is that they have a greater right to self-determination than the Palestinians. Bush's wars for oil are partially justified on the grounds of some moral crusade against "islamofascism".