"The best way to avoid trouble is to assess the situation and decide if you are willing to die fighting for your beliefs."

First thing in assessing the situation is to decide whether dying and killing in the course of fighting for your beliefs is going to help further those beliefs.

I don't think that Islamic jihadists, ready to die and kill for their beliefs, are doing anything to further Islam.   And I don't think that the people who have been sent to die and kill in Iraq by politicians sitting safely in London and Washington (in the safe parts of London and Washington that is) are doing anything to further what was said to be the reason they were sent, democracy and freedom and human rights and all that.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.