Deathby AR15,
Our enemies call us this for a number of reasons.
Our foreign policy over the last 35 years has included a lot of miltary actions. Starting with VN thru now we have dropped a lot of bombs. You have to decide for yourself if these were all justified or not.
The Arab extremist world is only informed via biased sources. People in Iraq mostly don't hear anything Saddam doesn't want them to. Palestinians hear little to nothing.
From our perspective all our actions are taken in response to aggressors around the world. Our perspective is these actions are to protect people from aggressors and were always in reaction to their attacks. Their perspective is it is none of our business.
In any case, right or wrong, our activity around the world has created a lot of enemies. Personally, I have been predicting some sort of terrorism in the USA for years. Never in my wildest did I think it would be this magnitude.
Perhaps it was unavoidable. As the worlds leading economic and military power there was no way to not get dragged into some things. The only question now is, do we continue to do the right thing, or do we overreact and snuff out thousands of possibly innocent civilians in our rage?
I for one don't think the govt has to react NOW. We need deliberation, intel, and legitimate TARGETS.
James