In a recent interview with the Pakistani

newspaper Dawn, Osama bin Laden justified the killing of innocent Americans this way :

"If an enemy occupies a Muslim territory and uses common people as human shield, then it is permitted to attack that

enemy. For instance, if bandits barge into a home and hold a child hostage, then the child's father can attack the bandits and in that attack even the child may get hurt. America and its allies are massacring us in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir and Iraq. The Muslims have the right to

attack America in reprisal."

That's the traditional justification for killing, isn't it?

They kill us, we kill them, they kill us, we kill them.

What ever happened to "thou shalt not kill"?

Equally unimpressive is President Bush's justification for killing: we are in a war with terror.

Okay, then what about terror committed by us?

We kill innocents, they kill innocents. It's all terror.

Last week, Bush said we don't target innocent civilians.

Oh yeah? What about the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the fire bombing of Dresden? What about U.S. support in the 1980s for the contra war in Nicaragua, and the CIA mining of Nicaraguan ports -- actions which killed thousands and led to a judgment against the United States at the World Court?

Civilian targeting, and terror, pure and simple.

Most despicable are those in our media, who sit comfortably in their modern offices, staring at their computers, and

hit the keys advocating more killing of innocents thousands of miles away.

Here's our short ten worst list, in order of repulsiveness:

Michael Kelly (Washington Post): "American pacifists