why do they hate us?

Vox Day responds to the question of why Jihadists don't seem to like us:

That's simple enough. They hate us because we're over there. If we would leave them alone, they would focus their energies in places such as India, Indonesia, the Phillipines, the former Soviet Union and Europe...

Now Vox is plenty intelligent, but this proves that even someone that smart can be dead wrong every now and then. Are we to conclude that those pesky Jihadists would just ignore us if we didn't have troops in their desert? Fat chance. These radicals see themselves as being opposed to the entire infidel world, not just parts of it. They've told us that themselves. And yet, despite their current animosity toward non-Muslims and centuries of violent history, we're supposed to think that we can ignore that problem and it will go away, or at least ignore us in return? Give me a break. There are plenty of good arguments as to why we shouldn't be fighting in Iraq (I happen to think we ought to be taking the fight to them BTW) but the "everyone will leave each other alone" crap is not one of them.

Vox Popoli commenter Soup says it well:

So the hope herein is...what? That maybe if we leave them alone they'll stop killing us, and only kill other people? That perhaps they'll stop bothering us by flying planes into our buildings, bombing our ships, slitting the throats of journalists/tourists/contractors (that is of course until they mature militarily and can threaten us with nuclear annhilation)? Yeah, that's the ticket, ignore it, and it will go away. Sounds like "A Field of (Pipe) Dreams" to me.

Me too.