[Adam]

Originally Posted by Cool Hand

I have a problem with our accepting responsibility for "creating" terrorists. I understand your point, and it's a good one, and a good cause for concern.

I wouldn't say that we are solely responsible for creating terrorists, but I do think that we clearly have a role in the creation of anti-US terrorists. I think that there are a number of factors that lead an individual to become a terrorist. Most important are probably a situation of despair for the future (Jessica Stern's Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill is an interesting exploration of this factor), leaders who are willing to provide spiritual or ideological justification, an overwhelming opposition that cannot be defeated by conventional means, and perceived grievences at the hands of that opposition. While we have (arguably) nothing to do with the first, and certainly nothing to do with the second, we are responsible for our own overwhelming military supremacy (probably not something we can reasonably change) and our actions that are percieved as grievences in the Muslim world (something that we can reasonably change). No, we are not solely responsible for creatting terrorists; there's a reason that, say, the French don't hijack our airplanes when we piss them off. We are responsible, though, for being aware that, when our actions are perceived as unjust by people in cultures where the other conditions for terorrism exist, we are playing a role in encouraging terror.

Actually, when I mentioned deterrence, I was thinking of deterring those funding terrorists from funding them, not those who might become terrorists from becoming them

That's a goal I wholheartedly agree with, provided that we can punish those parties with minimal damage to other, non-guilty, parties.