100+ people killed in French terror attacks.

[Philly]

[spacemonkey]

Where is NATO? According to the laws of its own charter it's required to intervene. Actually situations like this are the reason for its exestance.

[exploited]

[Spider]

More than 70. I don't deny that divide...though I don't know why you are limiting it to North America. Really, a lot of this mess can actually be laid a the feet of Britain and France (among others) redrawing maps in intentionally divisive ways after the Ottomans fell. To say nothing of the Israel situation. Plus, the rest of the West has been actively involved in this mess all along.

What I'm opposing here is the narrative that the West is trying to oppress the Muslim world on some sort of religious or cultural grounds, or even on territorial dominance terms. Basically the real East-West problem stems from old school imperialism and more recently economics. Basically, the Spice must flow. That's pretty much all the West cares about.

Obviously there has always been a cultural divide between East and West. But, to put it bluntly, with the East slurping down KFC and western cultural exports, and the West openly (at least prior to Paris) accepting refugees into their own pluralities and having made huge efforts at Muslim acceptance, I think there is a really large common ground that transcends the differences. In fact, this great shift to the hard right during the 20th century on the part of a lot of the Muslim world is a reaction to western style liberalization...and continues to be a core point of contention throughout the "Arab Spring": "Do we want a more theocratic society or a more secular one, and are we willing to kill each other over it?"

[Saracen]

[Spider]

Even a substantial majority of 1.7 billion leaves....how many?

[Saracen]

[Saracen]

[Saracen]

[exploited]