Allow me to paraphrase from a website entitled American Terrorism, because it gets to the heart of the matter as directly as possible: If the homicidal maniacs of the American military hadn't spent the last 60 years mass murdering innocent men, women, and children in over 50 countries worldwide, there's a damn good chance that there wouldn't be suicidal psychopaths running around trying to exact their revenge.

Ever heard the phrase "live by the sword, die by the sword"? How about "it takes two to tango"? If you really believe that this is a battle between a "free, democratic country" versus "the scourge of terrorism," let me set you straight. This is a war between two groups of equally vile, despicable terrorists. And, as always, the vast majority of victims are innocent.

If you study the under-reported history of the 20th century, you'll find that America has been the major financial backer of state-sponsored terrorism since at least the second World War. At that time, the American military showed the world it's complete and utter lack of anything resembling human decency by leveling two Japanese cities and wiping out over one hundred and fifty thousand innocent victims.

Not content to rest on its laurels with that morally reprehensible act, the U.S. (with their close buddies the British) pushed forward to create the state of Israel by funding the Israeli war machine, which not only drove the Palestinians from their own land, but made a point of dismantling over 400 Palestinian villages and creating between 750,000 and 900,000 refugees. Today, there are about three million Palestinian refugees, of which a million live in appalling conditions in refugee camps. In the past five decades, the U.S. has continued to fund Israel - a regime of institutionalized violent racism which, to this day, uses torture and murder to enforce its policies.

Throughout the 20th century America had its hand in virtually every conflict this globe has seen. The result: millions of innocent men, women and children killed in the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Korea, Indonesia, Panama, Grenada, Libya, Lebanon, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia and Yugoslavia. I could go on, but I think you get the drift.

misinformed individual. Note that I don't say "uninformed", for clearly you've been doing some homework. But, as the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out."

Yes, the United States has been involved in every major conflict. After speinding the 1930's doing everything we could to avoid being dragged into another European war, Americans realized the failure of an isolationist policy. So yes, we embroil ourselves in almost every global conflict. Often at the cost of millions of American dollars and thousands of lives.

In many of these conflicts, chosing the good guy is not easy. Often there isn't one. Do we use that as an excuse to stay out. We could. But we would then be abdicating our role as a world leader.

Instead we try (often unsuccesfully) to identify the side in a conflict which represents the greater chance of leading to free, open, democratic society.

Take the Iraq/Iran war of the 1980's. When the Ayatollahs were destroying everything remotely Western, and burning American flags, etc. Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime clearly seemed like the "lesser of two evils". Were we wrong. . . tough call. Iran remains a fairly repressive/oppressive nation, as does Iraq.

Likewise, consider Afghanistan. Notwithstanding Reagan's "made for t.v." hyperbole about the majahedin being freedom fighters, the US new that our allies there were NOT choir boys. We were well aware of their dealings in the opium trade, etc.

But, we were also aware of the fact that the totalitarian government of the USSR had unjustifiably and brutally invaded Afghanistan.

Did we back the right horse. I think so.

One last comment you made requires a response. You state: There is no difference between the bombing of Pearl Harbour and the bombing of Hiroshima.

This is absurd. First of all, the bombing of Hiroshima saved millions of JAPANESE lives. The Japanese intended to protect the homeland with the lives of their children. They were training women and kids to be grenade bearing kamikazis. Their surrender spared their lives.

Moreover, in case you didn't realize this, the Hiroshima bomb was dropped in response to the aggression of the Japanese. But for the Japanese decision to exercise hegemony over the entire Pacific, we would never have bothered with them. The Japanese were the force of imperialist aggression in the second World War, not the United States.

Bottom line: Whether you realize it or not, you are not a member of the "loyal opposition." You are one who hates America. I guess that's your right. But you've got a lot of nerve to take advantage of the freedoms and liberties provided to you by people you despise.

Why do you think you know why these fiends did this? What inside information did they impart to you to tell you what their motive was?

Face it, for all you know,these guys belong to a satanic cult.

I think that Kim is quite naive to believe that she lives in a free country. The US is probably one of the worst Police states among western nations and by the ways it has gotten even worse since the S11 attacks. Hey folks we are seeing the establishing of a huge fascist state and hardly anyone is realizing it ! Wake up people for crying out loud ! The fascist scumbags are in power again and want to establish their 4th Reich worldwide. Just have to ask Daddy Bush about what he meant with his "New World Order" ten years ago, that old member of "The Order of Skull and Bones" knows very well of what they've got in store for us. Yeah all those eugenist shitheads are back to destroy weaker and poorer folks worldwide and reduce world population by 2/3. And by the ways the Bonesmen (Includes baby Bush) are satanists. Well how on earth can you be a nazi pig and not be evil ?

Then what does that make Afghanistan? Or China, North Korea, or so on and so forth throughout the world?