Originally Posted by The_Jazz

I think that you've drawn too narrow a point here. War is simply politics by other, more violent means. All of your examples have funamental flaws in the religious nature of their roots. For instance:

September 11 - many people much smarter and better informed than I have pointed out that Al Qaeda's attack was political rather than religious in nature. That organization rejects America's presence in Saudi Arabia and the embrace of Israel as well as American suppression of popular (in many cases Islamist) democratic movements because they are not in America's best interest. Restricting your point to simply saying that they believe the US is in league with the devil doesn't acknowledge some very important facts.

Salem Witch Trials - religion was the excuse used to purge the community of Salem. This was a basic power struggle very similar to the USSR c. 1929-1939 with religion as the excuse rather than "wrecking" or "Trotskyism" that the Soviets used. Those in power chose to listen the accusers in order to seize their property.

Nazi Germany - I don't understand your point of including this example. The Nazi's were a purely political organization and were hostile to Christianity at times. They certainly were not driven by religious fervor any more than the Soviets at roughly the same time were motivated by it. One group persecuted by the Nazi's - the Jews - were a religious group, but the Nazi's also went after the Gypsys, homosexuals, Slavs and Communists. If anything, the Nazi's were more into the occult, but even that is a tenous claim.

Iraq/Kuwait - Saddam is notorious areligous. He attacked Kuwait for the oil profits. His excuse may have been that "God promised it to us", but that's clearly just the excuse for the attempt. I'm not sure where you've gotten this quote, since at the time he said that Kuwait was an Iraqi province and retaliation for Kuwaiti slant drilling into Iraqi oil reserves. Please note that Iraq fought a prolonged war with the most militantly religous state in the region - Iran - in the 1980's. Also, many of the higher level Iraqis in his goverment were non-Muslim, most notably Tariq Aziz who is a Christian. There's also the fact that Saddam removed the Sharia laws from the books when he came to power, which is pretty much a direct rejection of fundamentalist Islam.

Israel - this is a real estate conflict with religion as a backdrop. The Palestinians basically got kicked off what they thought of as their own land by the Jews/Israelis. I think that you need to research the creation of the Israeli state. The two sides are of differing religions, but that's neither the source nor the continuing reason for the conflict.

Wars are very rarely religious in nature. With the exception of a couple of the Crusades (the Children's Crusade most notably), there really hasn't been a truely religious war that I can think of. There have been lots of wars where religion has been the backdrop, but the basic causes tend to be economic or political in nature. Whenever one group attacks another, it's because they feel oppressed or they want something like land or other resources. You are absolutely correct in saying that religion is often used to motivate the rank and file, but the leaders who decide whether or not to go to war in the first place are motivated by much more secular things than religious passages. Please show me an example of where a leader relied solely on religion as an impetous for war - I'll bet that you can't find one.

You can take snippets out of virtually any philosphy to make a case for or against war. I think that you've done the exact same thing with this topic - you've taken a snippet out of one of the causes for conflicts and bent it around to fit your arguement. You're falling into exactly the same trap as those that your critisisg.