1. Islam is 1400 years old, not 700.
2. Yes, it has a destructive history. So does Christianity. Whilst I consider Islam to be a threat to Western ways of life, this does not mandate personal hostility. Does a surgeon remove tumors more skilfully by hating the tumors? No. Therefore, if you wish to defend philosophies opposed to Islam, then you also must not hate Islam but only see it as the opponent. Hatred is the enemy of reason, and, therefore, of skill and valour.
3. It was not Carter's policies that "let Islamic fanaticism out of the box". The fact is that since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic world had lost its only Great Power, and was re-examining itself relative to the West (or the Communists). Carter simply had the misfortune to be the President at the time that many Mulsims reached a violent consensus on how to deal with the West, although he failed to support the Shah of Iran, which led directly to the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
4. In any case, it is not the fanatics who are the threat. They can kill individual Westerners; they cannot threaten the foundation of Western society. The immigrants, with their calls for shariah law for Muslims in Western countries, can threaten these foundations. Their Saudi bankrollers can threaten these foundations. The fanatics can't. Even their most sympatheic co-religionists view them as expendable shock troops, not as the genuine vanguard of a military Islamic Renaissance.
Sun Tzu - "If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, then you will never win a battle. If you know your enemy but not yourself, or yourself but not your enemy, then you will win one battle in two. If you know both yourself and your enemy, then you need never fear the outcome of a battle." I suggest that you apply this, fundie. Whilst I consider myself to be an enemy of Islam, I hold it in great respect and understand its strengths as well as its weaknesses. Therefore, I will ultimately contrbute far more to the fight than will you.
P.S. Argumentum ad Hitlerum is a logical fallacy. And if Bush was on the ball, he'd do something about Saudi Arabia, the biggest cesspool of Islamic fanaticism in the world.
