Joel Mowbray pinpoints the real reason in the Washington Times:
…a disturbing number of apologists have taken at face value jihadists who point the finger at the U.S. presence in Iraq or the Jewish one in “Palestine.”
But if the real motivation for Islamic terror is an aggressive U.S. foreign policy or Israel’s supposed oppression of the Palestinians, why did 17 young Muslim men allegedly plot to strike Canada?
Canada has no soldiers in Iraq. Few would consider it a good friend of Israel. Canada has offered its warm embrace for Muslims from around the globe. Canadian Muslims experience minimal discrimination, let alone anything even resembling oppression.
Why Canada?
Leaders of Islamic terrorist groups, from Osama bin Laden to Shiekh Ahmad Yassin (the late “handicapped” and “elderly” founder of Hamas), universally agree that no government is legitimate unless it is Islamic. Establishing an Islamic state is, in fact, what most unifies jihadists around the world.
So why Canada? Because it is not an Islamic state.
But the drive for an Islamic state is probably not enough of a salient motivator for foot soldiers, as it is still a somewhat intellectual ideal. Hence the slanders. Telling young Muslims that their non-Muslim neighbors are going halfway around the world to rape Muslim women strikes a raw nerve.
Believing that members of the Ummah (the world body of Muslims) need to be defended makes someone far more susceptible to messages that violence should be waged in the name of Islam.
Read it all.