[bobkoure]

I don't particularly care what you call 'em - by "Islamic fundamentalists" I meant folks who claim to be extracting the truth from what was actually written in their respective holy books - which puts them beyond dissent from "laypeople" (or whatever you'd like to call Islamic believers who are not imams).
I've had almost no contact with Christian fundamentalists, but, from what I've read, it doesn't work that way for them - it's more of a Protestant fundamentalism, in the sense that you read the holy books yourself and figure out what they mean yourself, potentially with guidance (do I have that right?) I'm out of my depth on this one - but have never used "fundamentalist" as a pejorative.
Again, the problem is that, with Islamic fundamentalism (or whatever you'd like to call those threads of Islam claiming authority because they are "returning to the words of the Prophet"), there's no dissent. There's not even any "finding other opposing passages" in the Koran.
Oh, while I'm at it, Wahibism is one of those radically conservative "returning to the words of the Prophet" threads/sects - and it's been/being spread worldwide by the Saudis as they build mosques.
Now, one of the reasons the Saudi royal family (el Saud) adopted Wahibism is that they hold territory that is very holy to Islam - so they must appear to be most conservative to deflect criticism. IMO, they've also been building these mosques to also deflect criticism (and they certainly have the dough to do it.)
And... although it seems like a really trivial thing to us, it's important to Moslems that "infidels" (that'd be most of us here, I guess) are on this holy territory (meaning US troops in Saudi Arabia). Yes, I know, this was, at least originally to protect the Saudis (or at least the house of Saud) from Saddam - but we can leave there now - Saddam's in a jail cell. bin Laden listed this troop presence as one of al Quaeda's "grievances". Was it really a reason? I dunno - but it resonates with Islamic people, and for that reason alone, we should be at least evacuating Saudi Arabia (or only staffing with troops who are Islamic). So long as there's one "infidel", it's an issue. Now, yes, there has been a long history of the US supporting the house of Saud in return for concessions, but we don't need to have troops there to do that