I agree in principle with your noble views, however, this *IS* a religious war: Islam against the West (Christian) states, *NOT* Christian (read: West) against Islam.
Look at the lack of true protest against the 09/11 attacks by Muslims living (and even born) in Western countries such as the US and Great Britain.
Let me tell you an interesting story: my dry cleaner is a Persian Christian, and she flat out, and categorically says that Islam/Muslims around the world hate Americans, Christians, Jews, etc. and would stop at nothing! And she grew up with them...
I disagree. Bin-Laden and kin WANT to make it a religious war, but so far they haven't managed to convince the whole of the muslim owrld to join in. It is perilously close, however; even in our own revolution somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of the people here wanted to revolt... and succeeded. The muslim owrld probably runs to some 15% on average leaning towards Binny. The problem is that it isn't evenly distributed. Some countries might have a large enough percentage to destabilize them. The one thing we have going for us is that for the most part, people are bigger talkers than they are doers. They aren't angry enough to do more than protest...yet.
This is no more a religious war than was Adolf Hitler's war against the Jews. Hitler used the BS argument about 'jews killing Jesus,' for example, as a means of enlisting existing hatreds in his cause. Hitler was not himself a Christian, (though born into a Christian family) but if anything, more of a mysticist or even pagan. That many of the people who fell for his line of reasoning against the jews were religious, does not imply that the war itself was a religious one. It might have been for that segment of the population. Others in the population at the time were drawn to Hitler's cause out of a sense of humiliation and a rising nationalism (not patriotism) where people sought to recover their national pride after their humilition from WWI's terms of surrender. Still others joined the cause because he offered hope in hard economic times. Others purely joined in out of racism.
What we see in the movement in which Bin-Laden is involved is no different. If it is a religious war, then the religion is totalitarianism, because it sure isn't Islam any more than the Nazis were a Christian movement. I don't consider socialism religion. Nor do I consider people who misquote their own Quran as being muslim. (And the illiterate Mullah Omar -who isn't even a real Mullah- is known to misquote and twist it.) Saddam Hussein hs also bastardized things a bit. Iraq was not particularly muslim but for decades was secular, particularly under the USSR's aegis. Yet Hussein is using the art of blame, claiming that poverty and misery are US-induced, rather than his own responsibility, to get enough supporters to keep himself in power. The vision which sustains him is that of a premuslim Babylonian empire and his desire to be King of a new reincarnation of that empire of Ur.
Religion is being bastardized to achieve egotistical and political, not religious goals. I'm not saying that religion isn't part of it- I am saying that religion isn't the purpose of it.
Look at the lack of true protest against the 09/11 attacks by Muslims living (and even born) in Western countries such as the US and Great Britain.
I have seen a number of muslims speak up on national TV. I have Iranian friends who are apalled. There have been a number of muslims coming out to various churches as well to talk about the events. Others have joined the armed forces or are currently in the service, without complaint. A few have been in such fear they haven't even gone outside of their homes and Christian Americans are out doing their shopping for them or accompanying them.
Look at the lack of protest by Germans in the US when Hitler rose to power. Hitler had a great deal of support here, particularly among Germans! Did Hitler's perverse blend of Christianity and paganism, and American German's and some Christian's silence on the matter mean that Christians were engaged in a religious war against jews and victims of German sub attacks? Of course not.
Hitler and bin-Laden used religion (which they both had to twist and corrupt), along with class-warfare, nationalism, separitism, and socialism, to achieve their real goals of empire. Neither of them were priests, except of their own personel worship of self. They had to use much more than religion to work towards their ends- religion was just one of the tools, and in both cases the version of religion held by the leadership didn't resemble the mainstream, but was a chintzy fabrication designed not for religious purposes but for political ends. ,P> If it were a religious war, their Mullah would be a real Mullah; they would not need to create verses and interpretations out of thin air. The religious groups would be behind Osama 100% or even in a majority, but they are not joining his wagon train. That doesn't mean bin-Laden and his ilk haven't done their best to infiltrate any mosque they could to achieve their goals- they did just that, but in order to succeed they had to cloak themselves in the guise of 'relief agencies,' not just to slip past our government but also to dupe the regular muslim people within their mosques. The USSR did the SAME THING to US churches and schools- that is why there is a 'World Council of Churches' today, a council that pushes communist ideology at every opportunity; that is why our colleges are overrun with leftist professors so extreme even the DNC has a hard time being seen with them. That is why in the seventies and eighties we saw churches split and schools deteriorate. The USSR tried to weaken the US by subverting its churches. The likes of Bin-Laden try to weaken the moderates in the muslim world by infiltrating mosques and schools as well.
What we are seeing is Islamicism, and it is not a religion, it is a political movement seeking a false Utopian vision, blending an an arabic inferiority complex, natural desires to be independent, religion, mysticism, and typical marxist themes of class warfare... pretexed on anti-imperialism.
Let me tell you an interesting story: my dry cleaner is a Persian Christian, and she flat out, and categorically says that Islam/Muslims around the world hate Americans, Christians, Jews, etc. and would stop at nothing! And she grew up with them...
Many do. Just as poor people of all religions in the world were duped into hating America by the USSR's steady application of marxist ideology. (This same hatred pervades South America in Catholic areas- we do not blame it on Catholics, however.) What we are seeing is the residue of this marxist ideology that has had marxian anti-religion excised and replaced with a selected portions of religious theology, tradition, and legend. Same BS as Hitler used. Same BS as Fidel Castro used, when Castro used and uses the bastardized catholic and african blend of religion known as Santeria to consolidate power.
The only place where religion in its legit form really enters the equation as a root cause in this conflict is not so much in the obvious religioous justification bin-Laden tends to use, but in the poverty that is endemic in the muslim world. they view their poverty as having been induced by outsiders when it is due to their recent history as a midievil culture, with royalty, peasants, and a religious sect not much different from the European dark ages. This system has been a bane to individual rights in that the property rights laws were weak or nonexistant. Lack of property rights protections to prevent people from being parasitized by the nobility and the sects keeps a true middle class from forming and remaining stable. that means poverty for most. In modern times that has been continued in tribalism and mini-dictatorships where a small class of people has the rights and the majority live at their pleasure or not at all. Buying and selling land or other property has limitations imposed on the exchanges based on religion (in order to preserve the group) and so, there is no unfettered market for property, which restricts individual freedom.
But it is the misery and poverty which perpetuates the hate- not the religion, at least not directly. It is religious only in the sense that the religion, if it becomes the state, can produce poverty, and miserable people are easily made into pawns for any aspiring dictator. That is why people like Saddam Hussein, Castro, Arafat, Bin-Laden, etc, all seem to do what they may to keep the people in their control poor and restless, or at least, fearful of some greater enemy- even if it must be a fabricated enemy.