Tucks

I may be a bit naive, but I think I can offer a decent metaphor:

Christians = Muslims

Crazy abortion bombing Christians = Bin Laden's type of Muslims

There's a very small percentage of each religion that is so militant as to do these acts of terrorism, but that small core is prepared to do anything it takes to end, what they believe, are acts against their god. Every time an abortion clinic is destroyed, or a doctor killed, there's a small subset of Christians that rejoice and truly believe they've helped the world. Likewise with Muslims.

Imagine abortion-clinic bombing Christians deciding they were going to stop the practice worldwide. The difference is the abortion bombers view a relatively small part of society as the problem - abortion clinics. Fundamentalist Islams believe the entire concept of Western culture is an affront to their god. So they don't set out to destroy a small part of society like abortion clinics; they set out to destroy the society.

The past wars and such are strictly incidental. Fundamentalist Islams believe western society violates the 'orders' their god has given them. In their mind, not only is this evil society NOT changing their ways to meet their interpretation of Allah's vision, but far worse - they're evil practices are encroaching on the few parts of the world they feel ARE following Allah's advice.

99% of Muslims are the same as 99% of Christians and 99% of Jews - some deviations on who and how their god came to be, but following similar principles. It's the 1% of each group that's scary. 1% of Muslims equates to about 10 million people, many of whom have lived in a society where even viewing other ideas is not allowed - hence they tend to be extremely set on what they've been taught. And OBL is viewed as the person that's going to lead this 1% to unequivable victory, because after all - they're fighting for a holy cause - they can't lose.

That's my take, anyhow...