"In bin Laden's November 2002 "Letter to America",[3][4] he explicitly stated that al-Qaeda's motives for their attacks include: Western support for attacking Muslims in Somalia, supporting Russian atrocities against Muslims in Chechnya, supporting the Indian oppression against Muslims in Kashmir, the Jewish aggression against Muslims in Lebanon, the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia,[4][5][6] U.S. support of Israel,[7][8] and sanctions against Iraq.[9]"

To me, the current series events looks like this:

- U.S. Assisted or condoned a bunch of violence against muslims (including civilians)

- A group of radical muslim terrorists decided to retaliate with violence against U.S. civilians

- U.S. retaliates with a full scale invasion of the countries most likely inhabited by terrorists and proceeds to kill civilians through incompetence or lack of care

- U.S., unwilling to declare war against countries that aren't overtly hostile, proceeds to repeat killing of terrorists and civilians through incompetence or lack of care

I hate to say this because I by no means condone civilian deaths but the U.S. has been the one escalating this war and a dirty bomb or somesuch seems like a balanced (although by no means just) response to the actions of the U.S..

Just compare the numbers:

- American civilians killed by terrorists: 2977 [1]

- Middle eastern civilians killed during the Iraq invasion alone: 120,976 – 134,149 [2]

That's 40 middle eastern civilians killed for every American.

I think the longer this war continues, the more enemy combatants you're going to find and the more desperate and bitter they'll become. How many of these terrorists do you think are fighting against the U.S. out of insanity or blind religious fervour? I think the majority of them will have been created after seeing their families, friends and countrymen killed by western forces in their homelands and by continuing such strikes, you're only creating more of them.

I can't see any clean way out of this other than pulling out completely and trying to make amends for the atrocities the U.S. government has committed.

Now you're encouraging the U.S. to kill more of these people on the grounds that they might retaliate for the people you've already killed. Doesn't this seem wrong to you? The more people you kill, the more people are going to fight you.

Just think, pretend America was peaceful and didn't have a trillion dollar military. One day a few stupid Americans go and kill ~12000 Chinese civilians. China responds by launching a full scale invasion of the United States and kills over 480000 civilians, including a number of your friends and family at first you fear them. Over the years they start to get less discriminate because previously rational people have decided to take up arms against the aggressors. More and more of the people you know are dying around you because they were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe you're in a small town and half the people you know are killed by an indiscriminate robotic strike from above. Wouldn't even you be eventually pushed over the edge and want to start fighting back?

I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say but it seems to me the problem with this was is that the U.S. is _creating_ the terrorists they're there to fight.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_...

[2]: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

//rant