Because it's not like attacks like this weren't committed by muslims before ? In reality they've been at it since the early middle ages.

You mean those middle ages where a bunch of Christians went over to the middle east to kill a bunch of Muslims? You mean those middle ages?

First crusade: 1096 AD

Muslim expansion wars: 736 AD

In a way you're right, you've just got the agressor wrong. In fact the crusades were started because of muslim agression. Because, and I'm quoting muslim historical sources here "the blood of Christians was standing above our knees in Jerusalem".

Attention people! We found the problem!

Apparently the Muslims did a big land grab about 1500 years ago or so (just like the Romans did before them) and that's, apparently, where it all started.

Turns out it has nothing to do with the US foreign policy of the past 60 or so years, the creation of the state of Israel (and the Israelis being a bunch of dicks about it, and for the record, I'm most certainly NOT an anti Semite, though I'm allergic to assholes) and the British hopelessly trying to colonize Afghanistan throughout 1800's and a whole bunch of other dickhead moves by the west and their buddies.

Apologies. I'm not trying to insult your (or anyone's) intelligence. I just couldn't resist...

/sarcasm

PS: I'm very much a westerner, white male, atheist, born and raised in the Netherlands and currently living in Australia, for what ever it's worth.

This comment crosses into personal attack and that is not allowed here.

Calm happy people usually don't adopt violent ideologies. We pretty much caused a whole region to become very much not calm happy people. If we hadn't, chances are far fewer people would have supported these ideologies.

THAT is my entire point.

I think you need to read up on some more history.

Examples? Typically it only happens if some strong leader portrays another group as the enemy and manages to build up wide support. Manufacturing fear.

How about we take as a first one: do you seriously think WWII happened because Hitler portrayed the Jews as the enemy ? Do you think Iraq happened (first time OR second time) because Bush (first one, then the other) portrayed Iraqi's as terrorists ?Or let's take non-western conflicts. Say, Iran-Iraq war. Who demonized who exactly (as a cause of war) ? Do you think the Falklands war was about demonized Argentinians ?

I'm not trying to belittle or avoid the fact that people were demonized during these conflicts, in some cases with very unpleasant consequences. However, that had little to do with the conflicts themselves.

You think the people didn't feel the need for a strong leader because of a threat? Their economy was crap, and Hitler have them a scapegoat and scared them by talking about how dangerous they were and the need to become pure, etc...

Iraq for invaded because oil most certainly, using the fear of WMDs as the excuse.

You're also conflating the original source of each conflict with the reason for WHY the large masses joined in and took sides, the reason for why the conflicts COULD become large and dangerous.

In other words:

conflict one: economy was down the toilet, was attempt to fix it

conflict two: economy was bad, was attempt to fix that

My point was that conflicts happen (and grow) because the economy turns down, not because some people get demonized. That's a propaganda tool at best.

Not every poor country has gone to war. Propaganda is typically what makes people do so by amplifying fear and doubt and giving them The One Solution™.

Propaganda is a tool to start a war. It has nothing to do with the reason to start a war.