America and Jihad

Not a recent development:

...In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams sat down with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Tripolitan ambassador to Britain, to discuss the unprovoked attacks of the Barbary pirates on American ships. Jefferson and Adams were understandably confused as to the motivation for the pirates to attack American ships when the Americans had no quarrel with them. They recorded Ambassador Adja's response to their inquiries; in a letter to Congress, Jefferson and Adams noted "that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise." The justification contained in this passage never mentions economic goods like oil or political issues like Israel, most notably because the first was not relevant at the time and the second did not exist. The central driver of the war was the religious duty of Muslims to subjugate the infidels.

So the splinter is not new, but the size question remains. How many Muslims subscribe to this radical ideology? The weight of the evidence is not encouraging. In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a speech where he referred to some of the teachings of Islam as "evil and inhuman." In response, seven churches in Palestine's West Bank and Gaza were attacked and a nun was shot in Somalia. Anjem Choudary, a lawyer in London, told an assembly that those who insulted Islam would be "subject to capital punishment." Protesters carrying signs that read "Behead those who insult Islam" listened to him as he explained, "The Muslims take their religion very seriously and non-Muslims must appreciate that and ... also understand that there may be serious consequences if you insult Islam and the Prophet."

The reaction of the Islamic community made the Pope's point for him...