Before I start, I want it understood that there are Islamics and Islamists. Don't get them confused.

It's a point of fact that Islamists declared war on the West years ago. For a long time the Islamists largely allowed the Palestinians to wage war as their proxies. During this period the war on the West mostly simmered, bubbling occasionally when brave Palestinian warriors performed such heroic acts as pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair off of a cruise ship, beating a Navy man to death while they held passengers at gunpoint and tossing grenades into schoolbuses, pizza parlors and dining halls at old age homes.

I'm not sure if war was openly declared when they blew up the USS Cole or when they bombed Kobar Towers, or if it was another time. But the attacks of 9/11 are a milestone. At that point all doubt was erased. Anyone with three brain cells to rub together (ok, that eliminates Hillary, Michael Moore, Charlie Rangel, Barbara Boxer, Cynthia Kinney and a host of others) knew at that point that Islamists had declared war on the West.

Or had they? The attacks are Islam lashing out at the West for our policies. We should have expected the attacks. Islam is the religion of love. They don't hate the West, just our policies.

Well, maybe they do. But there are better ways to express displeasure than deliberately killing as many people as possible. That's a primitive response, not one suitable to evolved people in the 21st century.

At any rate, the point I want to make is that they have now completely blown any pretense that they are lashing out against Western policies, and not simply the West. The French police have detained nine Muslims (Algerians, apparently) who have been surveilling the Paris Metro, an airport and an intelligence facility.

France is likely the most pro-Islam country in the West. They can't possibly have a bone to pick with France's foreign policies. This makes it absolutely clear that the war they have declared is simply a war against the non-Islamic West.

Screw that idea that they're angry at our policies. They HATE US. They hate everyone who is not exactly like them. And there is no dealing with people like that.