OK, you've stated one view of the root causes. Here's what appears to be the other, much more popular in Europe and the Islamic World: Israel. Also America.

Given that, where's the common ground?

I think it's somewhat bad form for the Christian Science Monitor to crow about the effectiveness of the Europeans superior police work policy less than a week after the devastating attack in Madrid. The police had evidently been tailing one of the guys for awhile but apparently lost interest in him.

The IRA and the Red Brigades used to train in Libya.
After decades fighting terrorism, one would think that the Europeans would realize that foreign military operations are an essential part of fighting terror.
Reagan's raid on Tripoli did as much to end terror in Europe as any European police action did.

brian:

There is no common ground. That's why it's a war.
Israel is a rallying point, but Islamic Arab terror would exist without it.
The terror is part of the death throes of a dying culture. Strip out the oil revenues and Egypt's tourist income, and what's left ?

Nothing.

Arab nations will Westernize, or implode. Either way, their culture is lost.

That's why they're angry.

"Arab nations will Westernize, or implode."

What if they figure that
"I'M GOING DOWN, BUT ALL YOU KUFFARS ARE GOING DOWN WITH ME! ALLAH-U AKBAR! ALLAH-U AKBAR! ALLAH-U AKBAR!"
?

Ken:

Yes, that's what the terrorists are doing.

The vast majority, as everywhere, is more concerned with day-to-day living, and/or survival.

The terrorists are an irritant, but their chances of bringing down the West are exactly zero.

A few of the (alleged) suitcase nukes would certainly cause widespread chaos, if not defeat of the West.

Michael: What I meant was, where is the common ground between us and Europe? We think that the solution is to improve the situation for the common citizen of the Arab countries. Europe thinks Israel and the US should go away. Are we even then on the same side?

The common Arab needs to realize that if terrorists, or states like Iran, get nukes and use them, the retaliation won't be pin-point.

Both approaches are wrongheaded.

It's like Cadmus. Mohammed is Cadmus, the suras are the dragon's teeth and Islam is the soil he sows them in.

It isn't just Arabs and it isn't just Islamists.

It's the religion. The project of the religion is to destroy the infidels, one way or the other. As long as the religion survives, the project will revive in every generation.

At least, that's how it has worked for 1,400 years.

ed:

Suppose that nukes go off in New York City, Washington DC, and Los Angeles, and the US government is flailing a bit, and that six million people have, or will, die.

Are you going to run to a cave to hide, and pierce your penis to appease the gods, as the Naj Tunich Mayans of Guatemala/Belize did when the howler monkeys acted up ?

Or, will you stand with those of us who would rather create a few thousand square miles of glass in the Middle East, and then pick up our M-16s to go pacify and organize the survivors ?

If you choose the latter, the West cannot be defeated, only annihilated, and no terror group possesses the means to annihilate any nation, not even through bio-terror.

Harry:

If the average Muslim lived as well as a middle-class American, do you believe that there would still be widespread support for jihadists ?

Islam is always about 45 minutes from extinction; surely the 'terrorists' know that.

Michael
Let's rephrase the propositions above.
1. A combination of bombs AND a weakening of dedication to Western Values can defeat the West.

2. A Muslim who holds certain values might not be capable of living like a middle-class American unless he changes in some fundamental way the premises he is operating on. (I am referring to Harry's argument as to the fact that the Religion is the problem).

3. Harry says that death to infidels is part of the Muslim Religion. You quickly reject that to imply that is not a credible assertion. I have to admit Harry's assertion is credible on the evidence I've seen.

Michael, yes. All the evidence I've seen shows that well-off Muslims hate us just as much as, perhaps even more than, the poor ones do -- with honorable exceptions, of course, like the respectable but absent Mr. Choudhury.

It isn't, it seems to me, that the mass of Muslims are actively supporting the jihadists. It's just that they easily tolerate them.

Does anyone doubt that, if the so-called peaceloving Muslims gave a hoot, they couldn't turn over a list of every nutcase killer and would-be raisin sampler on the planet? It's a tightknit community.

They know, but they are keeping their counsel.

The deathwish jihadists are, in one sense, a special case. They just want to kill us. Moderate Muslims would accept our conversion instead.

Harry:

Other than observing actions and hearing what their holy book says, I just don't know how you can come to these conclusions.

Especially the offensive notion that a religion could possibly have exterminationist goals.

Islam has had plenty of opportunity to practice exterminationism and never has, not that Judaism or Christianity have either, though all can be brusque while conquering.

h-man:

1. It's the weakening of values that defeats the West, not any number of bombs. London got swiss-cheesed during the Blitz, yet did not yield.
I don't detect any widespread desire among Americans to capitulate.

2. Not at first, but given enough to lose, I believe that most Muslims would behave like any other normal human, and not risk their prosperity or property.

3. Death to infidels is part of the Muslim religion, but it can either be acted on, or ignored.
In the unlikely event that the majority of Arab Muslim governments reform, and become responsive to their citizen's needs, that aspect of Islam may recede.

Harry:

But even well-off Muslims currently live under corrupt governments. Maybe they hate America because it's easier than fighting city hall.

Perhaps I should have stipulated an average Muslim living under a responsive regime, rather than just a prosperous person.

Wrong on the facts, Orrin. The current offensive in Wazirstan, for example, about which so many are (perhaps prematurely) so excited, is not -- though most people seem to think it is -- happening in an area that has been traditionally Muslim for centuries.

It was convert or die, and just about 110 years ago.

Islam is not monolithic. The policy of the Caliph in the Balkans conflicted with the policy of the Sultan, although they were the same man.

Like Christianity, Islam has benefitted from secular restraints or, more usually, the desire of despots to collect taxes.

But the project of the religion, unlike the project of Christianity, is eliminationist.

Okay, Waziristan. That's all you got?

Well, that and the avowed goals of Islamists to slaughter all infidels.

Unless we infidels agree to submit to Sharia law.

So, I suppose you are right. They aren't elminationist. If you are willing to pay the price.

Every society ever has required submission to its laws.

That's not what I was talking about. You maintain religions aren't eliminationist.

I maintain they can be--Islamists are religious, they seek to elminate you.

QED.