Oh, and Iraq. Never forget Iraq. (But never mention Afghanistan, which even few on the American Left fail to call the "good war.").
Let's add another jihadi grievance against the West to the list that includes Spain's control of the Parsley Islands (and control of Spain itself, of course):
A good example, of how self-destructive Islamic radicalism is, can be seen in the continuing campaign to stop polio vaccinations. Several years ago, Islamic conservatives in Nigeria began urging parents to refuse polio vaccinations for their children. Eventually, this thwarted the worldwide effort to wipe out polio, because dozens of new cases appeared in Nigeria. All this comes from paranoid rumors that the medicine was a Western attempt to sterilize Moslem children. The Nigerian government put pressure on conservative Islamic leaders to stop preaching against the vaccination program, with mixed results. Islamic radicals are preaching against other types of vaccinations as well, causing something of an "Islamic Plague" among the growing number of unvaccinated children.
Can you even believe how evil we are? We try to vaccinate their children at no cost to them in order to save those children from death and crippling disease. And when the Islamists say begone you infidels, we actually try to vaccinate the children anyway!
As I ask on many occasions, what won't tick them off and inspire them to kill us?
Oh, and another question often pops into my mind: Is there any outrage that Islamists can commit that some Westerners can't excuse as somehow a justified (albeit misguided) reaction to something we did wrong?
It's a funny world, people. A funny world.
