I think many muslims just want the fundies to go away, like many Christians. The most recent uncovered plots have been due to Canadian/English/etc Muslims who turned the plotters in. That to me says more than marching in the street ever could (I'm not a protest fan, no matter what its for)

Hear me out then.... if you "nurture" and train Islamic militants to fight an ideological foe on the foundation of religion; why should it be a surprise if they also judge the US in the same harsh and fanatical light that they judged the Soviets? Afterall who encourage foreign Muslims to come and fight in Afghanistan because of the plight of their Muslim "brothers"? The US encouraged a fundamentalist Islam that thought and fought globally...

I fully understand your point and implication - and I actually agree with parts of this, in hindsight, although I'm not sure this was seen as a realistic future problem (fundamentalist Islam, not specific attacks).

This is exactly my point about creation of an environment, not causation of a specific action. The causal link, in my mind, simply cannot run along a path as convoluted as arm radicals -> create global fundamentalist armies -> nurture mentality of "us vs. them" -> greater gains made by fundamentalists in gov't and social affairs -> fundamentalists turn eyes toward Israel -> blame for Israeli state partially assigned to US -> scapegoating and increase in militant behavior leads to increasingly grisly terrorist attacks -> culmination is WTC attacks . . . and if you replace the "Israel" links w/ any number of things (Western way of life, invasion of Iraq, assaults on theocratic/dictatorial regimes, etc) you STILL have to include many, many outside forces in this environment to get to the end of the chain.

There's no one arrow here from US action -> WTC bombing - other elements drove the bus as well, and no matter what, the arrow requires the person to take the step themselves. There's simply no way you can argue it was a justifiable step to take, even given the actions preceeding it - no possible way. Opi wants us to think that's just an example of our "western thinking" showing how biased everyone is - that's simply not true, though. Justify this action for me. If you can't, it shows that the circumstances were not causal, at least in my mind.

Please oh please, I beg of you, don't put words in my mouth.

Thanks.

Now I must go to class.