Holy War

One of the topics that was very interesting to me in the reading was when it discussed holy war.

"Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idol-worship is worse than bloodshed."

I may be completely ignorant in saying this or even bringing this up as a legitimate point of discussion, but this seems like a pretty obvious justification of war to me. The only condition they are given is to not attack others first, other than that, the basic guideline of idol-worship being worse than bloodshed seems to be a a general rule of thumb to go by for war. I would be interested to know just how statements like this are thought of and treated with practicing muslims. It is an interesting contradiction to the Christian idea of turning the other cheek. Jesus put it very clearly in the sermon on the mount when he explained how as Christians, we have no business defending ourselves from the attacks of others. Nonetheless, we see Christian holy war many times in history in instances like the the crusades. Like I said, this may be completely ignorant, but it was an interesting thought to me.

P.S. I commented on Rebekah Dye's "My favorite difference"