Isn't it also FACT that everywhere a secular country populated by non-religious, pseudo-agnostics borders a non-secular country there is or has been violence.
No, I don't believe it is. Wars have been fought for territory and world conquest, but religion hasn't been behind any of them in the modern era. Unless you want to call facism or nazism religions.
And none of them religious or otherwise take the churches, synagogues or temples and turn them into Islamic sites.
I'll say that most of the violence in modern times around Islamic countries has less to do with the practice of religion or on behalf of one religious figure or another and has more to do with the socio-economic and political pressures onset by over 300 years of Western colonization and imperialism. 100 years ago, there was no such thing as a Saudi, a Syrian, an Iraqi, a Jordanian, or a Kurd -- a British guy drew borders on a map and dilineated them as such. Oldest trick in the book divide and conquer.
I'd say that's false, since all of those areas were controlled by the Ottoman Turks 100 years ago, and that was considered the height of muslim society- the Suliman Caliphate.
During the first World War, when the Ottomans aligned themselves with the Germans, the British aided the arab tribes in freeing themselves from the domination of the Turks. Perhaps you remember Lawrence of Arabia?
The British did do the dividing, based on the tribes they were working with at the time. This was the justification Saddam used to attack Kuwait, to reunite the provinces. The Kuwaiti's probably had no interest in joining back with Iraq. Iran was always separate as they are Persian, not Arab.
There is also the schism between the Sunni and the Shia, which the west as far as I am aware has nothing to do with as it is an interpretation of the lineage of Muhhamed's decendents, and the belief that only those of his blood line are fit to rule.
Sure the West has been responsible for a good deal of trouble there, but primarily for the purpose of doing business and getting oil out of the region. The Saudis and the rest of the Gulf states seem fairly happy with the arrangement, even to the point where they were against the recent attacks by Hezzbolah in Lebannon.
I'm not aware of any Christians or Jews singing songs comparing Muslims to Pigs and Apes, or making cartoons celebrating suicide attacks by martyrs. But I do know that both the Palestinians and Iranians are!
You might say that they're not acting in harmony with the tenents of Islam, but the mullahs there would dissagree with you.
Incidentally the American civil war wasn't about slavery, although that was a part of it. France and England conspired with the South and encouraged them to seceed. They did this because they were afraid of the rising strength of the US, and also because the European Money power was squeezed out of the US when Andrew Jackson closed the 2nd Central Bank of the US. The Europeans did not want the US to be on a gold standard, and they wanted to collect the interest on the public debt.
The Civil War pushed America deep into debt, and gave the European money power an opportunity to get back into the US. By 1913, the reached their goal, the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank, which is a private corporation owned by large American banks with European ties.
It was this control over the US that led to the start of WW1, where the European banks made a fortune having America finance the war, making supplies and munitions for the French and British.
