...Continued

The widespread delusion that the West, under the influence of Jews, is somehow responsible for the Islamic world's decline and decay is reinforced daily in the news media, music videos, television programs and school textbooks throughout the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Sermons from mosques around the world preach to the faithful that Islam is the one and only true religion, that Allah will eventually humiliate the Jews and "crusaders" and make them subservient to the followers of Mohammed, as they were during Islamic rule in southern Europe from the 8th to the 11th century.

They are taught that Islam is not only a religion but a universal ideology, a complete legal system and an infallible guide that will provide solutions to all problems of human life. In this theology, there is no pluralism, no accommodation, no mercy for the infidels.

The war on terror will never end unless moderate Muslims all over the world confront it.

British intelligence estimates that 3,000 British Muslims have passed through al-Qaida training camps out of a total Muslim population in England of two million. That's a high ratio of potential killers. Their sympathies must be well-known to their families, friends and leaders of the mosques they attend, where they are more than likely fed a steady diet of Saudi-style Wahhabism, a cult that asserts all other religions are false and exhorts its adherents to kill non-believers as their religious duty.

What is obvious is that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Iraq, where the U.S. and its allies ousted a repressive regime and have invested billions of dollars to rebuild the country while putting their citizens' lives at risk to establish democracy.

Nor has it anything to with the Palestinians to whom the G-8 leaders have committed another $3 billion US to help establish an independent state even though the Palestinian Authority has done nothing to dismantle its vast terrorist network as it is obliged to do under the "road map."

Neither can Islamic terrorism be linked to the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, where the U.S. liberated a people from tyranny, giving them the right for the first time to choose their government; or to the West's encouragement of the fledgling human rights movement in the Muslim world, where the concept has been unknown.

No, the terrorists despise the West because it is there, because its principles of religious freedom, democracy and equality are anathema to them.

So moderate Muslim leaders have to do more than grudgingly concede that blowing up innocent people on a subway train is bad. They have to rout out the evil in their midst.

Imams who preach hatred should be fired. Islamic schools that teach Jews are descendants of apes and pigs should be shut down. Videos, films and TV shows that extol the virtues of martyrdom should be banned.