Alternet: There probably isn’t a single American who would link an IRA bombing in Belfast with an abortion clinic bombing in Birmingham, despite the fact that both are the actions of Christian extremists who justify violence against civilians in the name of religious affinity. In the 1970s and 1980s, Europe had a dozen terrorist groups, all with vaguely similar grievances and with some minor contacts between them. Nobody ever suggested that those groups were parts of a cohesive entity that was waging a war on Western civilization. (more…)