RETALIATION and TERRORISM : RESPONSIBILITY or BLAME

[BLUEHAWK]

THE PREMISE:
Assuming, which this author does, that the American people probably would have been as, if not far more, likely to see the valid ethical point of pre-emptively invading Iraq on the grounds of liberating an extremely brutalized people, as compared with specious (if not greatly exaggerated or even fabricated) claims about WMD and Al Qaeda linkage; and assuming too that the Iraq war is seen by our government (including most of the Right Wing, American Enterprise Institute, and Evangelical Fundamentalists etc.) as one more battle in the larger and probably endless "War on Terrorism"... then knowing the CAUSES of Terrorism are of equal value in finding out how to stop it. Who and what brings Terrorism to life is every bit as important as knowing how to end it. Such acts are rarely random, on any scale. Terrorism, per se, is dignified in an unprecedented way by the simple act of declaring an official war against it, even though it cannot be attacked as an army-in-the-field. Such horrible deeds as 9/11 cannot possibly occur in a vacuum. There were causes on the part of the terrorists, and causes that created the terrorist activity. Owning up to responsibility is the better moral part of accepting the consequences as much as it is of justifying the retaliation.

THE FACTORS:
- Terrorism knows no geographical boundaries.
- In ALL modern warfare civilians ALWAYS suffer and die along with combatants.
- Attacks which result in "collateral damage" from any cause are as terrible whether intentional or not.
- Having the greater military capacity does not mean being able to defeat the enemy.
- Any "War on Terrorism" is not subject to goals and objectives that are quantifiable in expense or time.
- Terrorism may be fundamentally an act of desperation on the ideological scale more than anything else.
- There can be no winning against terrorism, only an end to it.
- Terrorism does not abide by the rules of war, and cannot be defeated by exercising them.
- Terrorism is not reduced by inflicting terror on others, in fact it grows wildly as a result.
- Gathering of intelligence data about terrorists has not, and will not, be proven to be a reliable nor an adequate way of finding and neutralizing the enemy.
- War, by definition, has a beginning and an end.

Therefore,

THE QUESTION:
To what extent must the American government and citizenry take public international responsibility for CAUSING the terrorist attacks upon our people and property in the past few decades?