Using violent means as a tactic to make people take notice is terrorism and I would not recommend that. Creating a shock value and bloodshed, terrorism hardly helps any cause except may be a sense of revenge for the perpetrators (terrorists). Violence against humanity is the refuge of the scoundrel. Acts of terror against unarmed and innocent civilians in an act of cowardice.

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A 9/11 would cause nothing but kill people who have nothing to do with these wars. The problem with the American conflicts are not that people like these wars, but that these wars are often perpetuated by their government without public approval and knowledge.

Who determines what is just? Leave it to the politicians to turn a black crow into a white dove to score political points or to get public support into an idea that the public is likely unknowledgeable in/about.

Looking at the logic in your argument, one can certainly argue that 9/11 was justified, given U.S. wars of aggression in the past, and especially against Muslims. We killed tens of thousands of people in wars that we had no business in. If retribution makes it all right, then the terrorists did justice by killing approximately 3000 unarmed civilians. But you don’t believe that any more than I do, because killing of innocent civilians no matter how you rationalize it is wrong. And that’s the key word — rationalize — because you can rationalize anything you want, but justifying it is a whole new ball game.

Crusades weren’t any more right than the Jihad is, but those who have a slight understanding of Islam know that Jihad is often interpreted outside its intended context. Jihad is a fight with self, to be a better person. Crusades were plain wars that also killed many innocent people. With your logic, much of what you say can be negated.

I would like to end off with this note, also derived from your logic, particularly the last line: “war is just when it’s fighting evil and enemies of mankind.”

Well, the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons to unleash horrors unspoken of onto numerous civilians is the United States of America. So if there is something evil, it’s the United States of America. Perhaps we all ought to fight the U.S., don’t ya think? Outside your nationalism, of course…

And if you understood a thing about Japanese culture before the surrender, it was fight to the death. The emperor surrending had NO PRECEDENT ever in Japanese history, and was only caused by the sobering effect the 2 atomic bombs had. Any sane rational person at that point knew there was no chance of winning. (Although there was an attempted coup by some fanatical Japanese officers who were intent on destroying the surrender message and overthrowing the emperor to continue fighting.)

And the cartoon itself is quite misleading as Saddam was only a nominal Muslim prior to his imprisonment. He quite often played upon the theological divide between Sunnis and Shites to control the population of the Iraq and targeted other minorities within his nation. When he targeted other nations, he did it for non-religious reasons. He invaded Kuwait because of his need for oil. During the first Gulf War, he launched missiles at Israel in a political attempt to turn the fight into a Arab-Israeli conflict.

I’m certainly not apologizing for American actions, but I do think that trying to say we are any worse than any other country is disingenuous. You could make the valid point that we aren’t as high and mighty as we try to make ourselves out to be, but the educated people on both sides of the political spectrum already know that. The ignorant on both sides can’t be taught otherwise.

I am glad you appreciate the destructive nature of wars. As some had already pointed out above, the US foreign policy is primarily based on application of force which includes wars as a means to achieve its ends. There is no moment in the last 50 years of US history that it was not in a state of war with some nation of the other, often juggling war with three or more nations at a time.

 
@ greg - “And the cartoon itself is quite misleading as Saddam was only a nominal Muslim prior to his imprisonment.”

The cartoon does not explicitly say that Saddam or Bush go to war for their ‘godly’ ideals. Saddam is as much Muslim as Bush is Christian and both know that religious sentiments can be easily exploited to goad warriors.

 
@ greg - “He invaded Kuwait because of his need for oil. During the first Gulf War, he launched missiles at Israel in a political attempt to turn the fight into a Arab-Israeli conflict.”

I am afraid, Saddam is no longer alive to confirm or deny your claims, however true from your point of view it may seem. Perhaps he did it for oil or perhaps it was just to impress his wives, we can never know for sure unless we have asked.

 
@ greg - “I’m certainly not apologizing for American actions, but I do think that trying to say we are any worse than any other country is disingenuous.”

It is unfortunate that you think so. A country which is continuously engaged in serial wars, mass massacres, ethnic cleansing and genocides is worse than a country which does not do any of these things. It is even worse when moral justifications are made for all these crimes against humanity. We cannot have one set of standards for Americans and a seperate biased one for Nazis, Arabs or the other ‘un-American’ groups.