Some think it is to rid the world of "evil" (terrorism) while others think of it as "meanness" and "greed," but that's all opinion and guess. Let's look at basics and see if we can do better. Let's find out what actually drives it.
First of all, figure it as a coalition of (1) Southern Baptist, Penticostal and Evangelical believers in the South and Mid-West, (2) the military-industrial complex and energy industries, and (3) a collection of people of all walks of life who hate the radical extremes which they believe the secular racial, sex, gender, gay-rights parades and environmental and animal-rights movements have gone and the general moral-political corruption. They are reacting against it by supporting a religiouness they themselves only partially believe.
Now, that means that the corporate interests (#2) and the moral conservatives (#3) must do what the premillenialist Fundamentalists (#1) want in order to get the votes to keep their own moral or profit-making agenda in force. This is because the religious ideologues have become militant and united voters.
So, what is the desire of the fundamentalists? Is it to preserve our Constitutional liberties and protect the Free World?
It is to "save souls" from the other, "heathen," faiths and submit to "God's will" in bringing on "Armageddon", then "the Second Coming," and "God's Kindgom" salvation! That's the agenda of the radicalized fundamentalists!
And when we look at the Bush Administration policies in action, we see this agenda being carried out with superb efficiency. It is impossible to imagine a more effective way for an Administration to hurry up their WMD Armageddon!
For example, we right away invaded two Muslim nations and now threaten a third (Iran). This has drawn more young men to Muslim terrorism than anything we have ever done before. We have made Bin Lauden into a world-figure. And now, young men throughout the Muslim world have so much resentment that even slight offenses---like the cartoon---are all it takes to incite them to rioting.
If young Muslim men are reluctant to become suicide bombers no matter how humiliated we make them by trampling on Islam, they can at least riot---and rioting is fun!
But as it continues, week after week, it is building ill further feeling among Christians. Westerners are becoming "fed up" with all the disorder because they cannot believe it stems from the way we have interefered with Islam. The West thinks it is "bringing freedom" to them, so, we resent how "ungrateful" they are over our "sacrifices".
That, in turn, makes us appear to justify the lampooning of the Prophet! So, they grow even angrier. It could reach the point where we deliberately run even more offensive anti-Muslim cartoons to "proudly show our commitment to Freedom of the Press." There is the potential for this to keep on---possibly even to esculate.
The effect of all this is to destroy the social glue provided by our secular belief system which, until now, has papered over our religious differences and made us into a sort of world community of nations. As that secular system's effectiveness rapidly crumbles away, the whole civilization is in danger. And, furthermore, it does not help that the world supply of oil is now beginning to level off.
The demise of our secular system is part of the Religious Right agenda because the "secular" is another word for "the profane." The secular has always been the enemy of Fundamental Christinity. Human "rights" are barriers to the Administration's most efficient control of the nation and the destiny of the whole world. The democratic dogma is merely something to spout out in political speeches while doing everything possible (behind the scenes) to eliminate it.
charles, http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com