>>>I don't think they (a few extremists) want a world-wide muslim theocracy, but want this i[n] the current Muslim lands.
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>>Then why are they on a jihad against the U.S.?
>
>I think because the US is the symbol of the west, but it certainly isn't to convert the US to Islam. That's a non starter, especially using mass murder of US citizens as a method.

I think this is not purely symbolic. One of their goals may be to become at least as influential here as Israel is (when was it that USA made a political move that was seriously frowned at there?), and another may be to kick out the colonial and pseudo-colonial rulers (and their proxies) from their countries. They know the oil companies are making more money than they are, and they might pose a question "who is the owner of our oil?". Add a few centuries of humiliation of the Arab/Islamic world by the hand of the West, and the long memory of the people there, and you can add revenge as a motive.

IMO, any blasphemy accusation is something you can throw on a member of your own religion, but the worst that may happen to the blasphemer shouldn't be more than just "anathema te", and depending on the degree of innate lunacy of the populace, it may end with an ostracism or even exile. But revving up a jihad over a bad joke shows that these guys have two deep character flaws: 1) taking themselves too seriously, 2) no sense of humor. These two combined yield the tidal wave of adrenalin, the fuel of war.

But then, aren't these two characteristic of each major religion at a certain stadium of development?