No, terrorists don't usually get rich, but they do seem extremely highly motivated to do what they do.


On the issue of the conflict between strict Islam/interpretation of the Koran and our Western lifestyle: Would these terrorists still wage their jihad on the U.S. if our own

lifestyle here, in our own country, were the only issue? I don't know.

But I'm guessing they wouldn't. As I understand it, based

in part on what I heard Bin Laden say in an old interview (but I am

certainly very under-informed and may be very wrong), their primary

complaints center on Israel/Palestine, our support of and military presence in various

Middle Eastern countries, and, I'm sure, such related things as our

sanctions against Iraq. But I'm really pretty under-informed here.


On the question of whether the U.S. is today engaged in anything which deserves much criticism: Let me first say that I agree with your basic view that we did not *cause* terrorism, but from what I understand we are engaged in some things, things that go underreported, which most of us would deplore if we really knew about them. Some of these would be among the complaints of these terrorists - I think. The sanctions against Iraq, as a result of which I hear assertions that countless civilians are suffering terribly, might be one. Again, I'm not well informed on this, but here's a quote from Amnesty International, from the mid '90s, which I saw in an article in my searching the Net for info on this stuff:


"Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman, or child is likely to be displaced, tortured, killed, or 'disappeared', at the hands of governments or armed political groups. More often than not,the United States shares the blame."


I agree of course that other countries have are vulnerable to even more criticism for their policies, many *much* more so.


I don't know if you can negotiate with terrorists or not. In some cases I doubt you can. But I would think it would vary.


I'm hoping to write a post pretty soon with a lot of questions on these issues. But in a nutshell I feel compelled to pursue two thoughts right now:


1) The practical issue: The U.S. appears to be rushing pretty quickly into something which could so easily turn out to be very regrettable, and ultimately quite hellish. We may even be playing into these guys' hands, as they had to know there was a good chance we'd react just as we are, and may have been trying to provoke just that. As powerful and well equipped as we are, I'm not at all comfortable about where we may be heading in fighting these guys in Afghanistan. Also, it's got to be basically impossible to predict what sort of sequences of political reactions our actions will cause. Chaos theory comes to mind. Scary.


2) The broader moral issue: I was a kid in grade school during the bulk of the Viet Nam war. Then and for most of my life since, I've heard lots of thinking educated folks express sympathy with the very simple idea that humankind ought to strive to find alternatives to war. Now, I know this probably comes off as naive, but why cannot this be a time to try something historically different, to try a nonviolent approach to a problem the response to which would typically and historically be war?