Is the "war on terror" really about good vs evil?

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My take:

The war on suicide jihadists is a war is something a lot like global law enforcement. North Americans, Brits, Spanish, Russians, no one really appreciates having people board buses, trains, or planes and hijacking or blowing themselves up to kill civilians. Its a concept where we want to live how we want to live - in our own autonomy, and having someone drag us to war over that is an invasion of that autonomy which irritates us all the more (some people like to call 'us' the invaders and that this is recompense for us violating their autonomy - don't know what to tell you on that). If a country is willing to crack down on that behavior, they do us a great favor, as in we don't need to send armed forces in - its a huge blessing. When you have someone who's strident or cocky about their ability or desire to do something to the contrary; really creepy stuff and additionally with rogue governments who have nuclear programs and who wish to try enriching Plutonium or Uranium to usable level for an atomic bomb (or aim to get one and pass it off to the terrorists), its the kind of situation where there's not much of a choice - its a huge liability and if the worst should happen, heads will roll, just like people will attempt to make heads roll if a governing party seems too zealous or preemptive (ie. Bush/Cheney); its really a lose/lose in the court of public opinion and anyone in power is stuck gambling with the odds and how much political popularity is damaged (hopefully its much more about saving lives but it doesn't always happen that way).

With people who'd claim that this is a religious war on the part of the west - I have no idea what to tell them, we know that this is a religious war from the side of radical Islam but the concept of it being a bible-beating pentecostal right kind of thing seems dubious. I won't guess at the intentions of people who I don't know personally at a higher level, though in substance with Islam having on separation of church and state we do seem to assert our will that Islam become extremely liberal; liberal enough to behave in a similar societal manner to to rest of the western world. I would call that more of a secular globalism vs. Islam religious conflict rather than Christianity vs. Islam or Judaism vs. Islam type of thing.

When I lived in Israel my Arab friends got along with dogs quite well.