Great post Sparhawk!
It is nice to see solidarity from around the world, even if it is for just this one event. I too lost friends and collegues in the attacks and that pain is still with me.
I agree that for this act of absolute cowardice, the US cannot be blamed, no matter what it's past record. bin Laden is a madmen! Hell bent on destroying what he believes is an evil to Islam. Two of his demands that he has stated are
1)Pull all troops out of Saudi Arabia
2)Discontinue support for Israel
But even if we fulfilled these two (and some other things he has demanded) would he really be satisfied? I don't think so. I really don't think this is about anything the US has done in the past. This is about a hatred for the western world. We allow things that are unheard of in a Muslim world (especially in an extremist sense). We allow women basic freedoms. We eat pork. We allow graven images. We have TV and Radio. And many more. To an extremist like bin Laden these things are an outrage and should be stopped. We are evil in his eyes. Not b/c of our troops, not b/c of our support of Israel, but b/c we do not follow the basic Muslim rules that he follows!
And don't think he will be content with only hitting the US. Europe is just as prime a target and I don't think it will be long before a terrorist attempt is made there.
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