The author asks.."Why do Manchester, Paris and London get targeted by Islamist terrorists and not, say, Zurich, Oslo or Warsaw?" and then proceeds to not offer an answer.

Let me try to help.

In Poland (Warsaw) the Muslim population is 0.1% of the total. And almost all of these are Tartars who've been there for many generations. There is essentially no jihadist sentiment in Poland.

In Switzerland (Zurich) the Muslim population is higher at about 8% but almost all of these are from non-jihadist regions like Yugoslavia.

In Norway (Oslo) the muslim population is around 5%. Although there have been no successful terror attacks as yet, this is more to do with the success (luck?) of the Norwegian counter-terror efforts than for a lack of trying.

In the end, the level of jihadist terror in any particular location bears a direct relationship to numbers of Muslims with jihadist backgrounds in that location. Places like Poland, which, remember, has been up to its arm-pits in supporting the war on terror, understand that Muslim immigration results in Muslim terror and have assiduously refused to allow such immigration despite the best efforts of the EU which continues to press them to allow such immigration.

Asking why they hate us is the wrong question. Asking why we allow those who hate us to live among us is more pertinent.

We made a dreadful error when we started to allow and encourage Middle-eastern immigration to our shores. But we, unlike much of Europe, still have the opportunity to fix, or at least minimise, that error.

We need to stop all M-E Muslim immigration now ( if not earlier ;) ) and then start the work of snuffing out all jihadist sentiments within our midst.

It'll only take a generation or three to rectify the past immigration errors.

The real 'religious war' of our times is between capitalism and socialism. Time and again, the West has actively recruited Islamic fundamentalists to overthrow socialist-based, secular governments in the Islamic majority countries of the ME and northern Africa. It also sided with the Islamist Bosnians to destroy Yugoslavia, the last remaining socialist nation in Europe.

The real 'religious threat' was that these countries were actively non-aligned to the Western capitalist system. The Islamic countries that have remained closely aligned to Western capitalism and have kept their populations safely out of socialism's clutches have remained unscathed by Western intervention.

All this Islamic terrorism in Western countries has proved extremely helpful in keeping Western populations sufficiently terrorised and distracted to prevent any kind of socialist challenge to capitalist hegemony. Interesting that, the more Western populations are challenging rising inequality, the more the 'Islamic' terrorist attacks increase. Conspiracy theory 101.

diver dan

'... precedence says, since the west finally admitted defeat in the Vietnam war, and outcomes improved remarkably for all parties involved following the defeat, why not repeat the success story in the ME?'

This is true. Although I have always rejected the prevailing belief that the US (west) 'lost' in Vietnam. It merely withdrew from its military involvement in Vietnam, but only after all its political objectives had been achieved. Along with the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s and the 1966 Suharto coup in Indonesia, all socialist threat had been removed from the national independence movements of SE Asia. Although Vietnam won its military war, it remained a pariah state economically until it finally succumbed to the capitalist religion in order to survive.

Well Kilarney if Islam can achieve stopping the killing of millions of unborn and prevent the grooming of kids from ' safe' schools programs its hard to argue that it is a worse ideology than socialism. Both are death cults and as bad as each other.

Why do Muslims hate us.?

Is there anyone in the world they don't hate?

The Western freedoms also threaten the power of the Imans, to keep
control of their people. They live a pretty high life off the donations
of their followers. At the recent Ramadan down south the Iman had a huge fist full
of money given to him by the faithful.
If their followers begin to question the power of the Muslim priests by being exposed to ideas coming through on mobile phones etc. their lucrative lifestyles will be over.

It's the same reason the Jews demanded the Romans execute Jesus when they were asked to choose. Jesus threatened their power when he critised and tipped over the money tables in the church.
The Muslim priests cunningly turn the hate towards the Americans to deflect dissent from their followers

Alan B

I don't see why we should spend money helping out countries that seem incapable of helping themselves.

I watched starving children in Africa on Tv decades ago, and we poured tons of money
into these countries in foreign aid. How come nothing has changed.

Also the Palestinias,Isis and the Taliban use Hospitals and schools to fire rockets.
Even the nazis respected that space and didn't use hospitals and sick people as shields

Cherful,

"The Muslim priests cunningly turn the hate towards the Americans to deflect dissent from their followers"

Just a small point, Muslims don't have priests, in fact, they have no clergy at all.