heric - American military personnel are not bombing and killing civilians in many places in the Middle East and central Asia because they (the American servicemen) are "hateful people bent upon the destruction of the Islamic way of life"...

No. They are doing it because they are:

1. following orders, and...

2. they think it will defend the American way of life!

They're deeply in error to think that, but they do think it.

Likewise, the Islamic fighter is...

1. following the orders of his superiors whom he looks up to, and...

2. he thinks he's defending the Islamic way of life!

He is deeply in error to imagine that blowing up an airliner full of civilians will defend the Islamic way of life, but he does think it.

This doesn't make American soldiers or Islamic jihadists "evil" people. It makes them ignorant people who are caught up in huge political and social situations that they don't really understand very well, but who are convinced that they are doing their duty as they should, and that they are defending their way of life by killing the "enemy".

They BOTH end up ruining the lives of many innocent people and killing the innocent...but they don't do it because they're evil...they do it because they are ignorant. They're too ignorant to understand the full effect of their own actions on other people, mostly because they don't know those other people personally and don't understand them at all. They can easily kill a stranger if ordered to.

To believe that your enemy is an "evil" person is simply to fall for crude and stupid propaganda which has but one purpose: to make YOU go out and kill someone for your government or leaders in a stupid and profitless fashion. If you do fall for it, then you'll go out and DO something evil, yes...but not because you ARE evil...because you don't really know or fully grasp what the hell you are doing in the first place. Thus do the innocent and foolish who are NOT evil themsevles bring evil into the world. And they do it on BOTH sides of any war, but specially when they invade someone else's country or bomb somone else's civilians.