That said I completely disagree with your belief that by pulling our troops out of the Middle East it will make any difference whatsoever in Muslims behavior toward America. I take the Islamic religion at face value, i.e., Jihad is part and parcel of Islam. Having troops in the Middle East makes no difference. Islam will wage jihad regardless.

In support of my argument how else can you explain the following acts of wardare by Muslims as none of these have anything to do with "troops in the Middle East"?

1) 4,000 Buddhist killed in Southern Thailand since 2004 by Islamists.
2) Islamists stirring up problems and violent confrontations in Western China.
3) Islamists stirring up problems and violent confrontations in Southern Russia...including killing over a hundred grammar school children in Beslan.
4) Sudan genocide. Islamist killing off what remians of the Animst and Christian community in Sudan.
5) Anarchy in Somalia resulting in all non-Muslims being killed or fleeing for their safety.
6) Kashmir in a constant state of insecurity thanks to Muslim/Hindu differences.
7) Coptic Christians in Egypt. One of Christianities oldes communites is being slowly eliminated from their original home because of Muslim's intolerance. The same thing is happening to the Chaldean Christian community in Mosul, Iraq.
8) Lebanon's Christian community has gone from 60% to 30% of that countries population as they are being driven out by Islamists.

I could go on, but you get my point. How are any of these conflicts connected to anything you write in your column? The only theme that is consistent between all these prolems is Islam, not America having troops in the Middle East.

Here's some Jeffersonian history for you:

>>In March 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied:

It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once. [2] [3]

Jefferson reported the conversation to Secretary of State John Jay, who submitted the Ambassador's comments and offer to Congress. Jefferson argued that paying tribute would encourage more attacks.<<