One of my biggest complaints about Bush's handling of the War on Terror in Iraq was the ROEs prohibiting our troops from attacking Mosques when the enemy was hiding in them. At that point they stopped being religious buildings and became enemy strongholds that should have been fair game.
The reasoning behind it is rooted in counterinsurgency, not necessarily an overbearing respect for Islam. Mosques are not only the house of worship, but over in Iraq, they're the center of the neighborhood. You attack a mosque, you've turned the entire neighborhood into an enemy stronghold where you won't get intel, the bad guys move with complete freedom (even though their use of the mosque is what brought on the attack in the first place), you're more likely to be attacked, no warning of IEDs, etc. There's very little in the way of schoolbuilding/humanitarian stuff that will bring that neighborhood back at that point.
Let the muslims defile and desecrate their holy buildings, God will know what they've done.
