[magician]

And there it is.

That journalist, for once, brought these matters into a clear and unambiguous light.

It is the Sharia, and the dream of a Caliphate, that is driving Muslim fundamentalists. They consider any Muslim who does not subscribe to their own interpretations of scripture to be an apostate, and this is the heart of the conflict between Shia and Sunni.

The Taliban implemented an Islamic state. They were a model, an example, of how any future Islamic state founded upon Sharia law would appear.

The madrasas are funded by any number of Islamic charities, and they do preach an unreconstructed, fundamentalist form of Islam. This problem is global. There are madrasas everywhere. These Islamic charities are primarily Saudi.

I think that TR is correct: our own Western traditions of tolerance work to our own detriment. We have a long tradition of freedom of worship. In this case, that tradition is incompatible with the defense of our societies and values, and a continuing hands-off policy towards the madrasas, the Islamic charities, and the basic contradictions inherent in Saudi policies only prolongues the inevitable.

The last century was the century of the conflict between communism and democracy.

This century will be the century of conflict between those who seek to establish an Islamic Cailphate and the rest of us.

God forbid that the next terrorist attack on US soil incorporates weapons of mass destruction. Nothing should be so feared on the planet as an America united in a demand for vengeance.