As to the separate "cowardice" debate in this thread--relevant to bias because the label is being rejected because of political bias--let me ask this.
A man loses his job, can't find another, can't support his family, and so kills himself. Bravery?
A woman gets divorced, fears being alone, kills herself. Bravery?
Now, that's "personal" suicide, you'll be saying. Not "political" suicide. As if mass murder of civilians changes it from cowardice to bravery. As if killing yourself in the attack, so that you don't face the consequences of your mass murder, changes it from cowardice to bravery. As if being deluded into thinking you'll be banging virgins later changes it from cowardice to bravery. As if causing the "million civilian deaths" your some people claim came later, changes it from cowardice to bravery. The terrorists, with arms, attacked the unarmed. With intent to war, attacked those with no such intent. With planning, attacked those without notice. If you don't know how incredibly cowardly all that is, be grateful for your prozac prescription.
If 20 Al Quaeda members gave notice they were going to attack, say, a US embassy or marine base, and thereupon did and died trying, as they surely would if they'd given notice, they would've have gotten respect, and their political message would have been heard. People would have to say "Wow, that was a suicidal attack, but, man, it took a lot of heart, so they must really believe in what they were saying...what were they saying?"
A few points.
I also, on 9/11, thought, and in fact could see, that we'd overreact. I was in a bar where the average opinion was expressed as "just bomb'em, just bomb'em to pieces." I was there saying "bomb who?" I would have said "bomb whom" but it wasn't that kind of bar.
But the point of my post is that no one can calculate the ramifications of actions, or inactions. Did Hiroshima/Nagasaki cost lives, or save them? That's one of the clearest examples of "saving by killing" I can imagine, and I mean saving Japanese lives as well as American lives. Yet many auto-condemn the bombings. And they might be right. None of us can ever know.
The Iraq war isn't nearly so clearly correct, and my guess is that it costs more lives than it saves. But I recognize that I'm guessing. This blog is about bias. How many people are willing to say that they can only guess whether the war saves or costs lives, and further admit that their guess might be seriously biased? Even the "facts" are biased. The million civilian deaths, for example. No one short of God knows how many people have died in Iraq since the invasion. No one has the facts, we only have biased guesses labelled, for propaganda purposes, "facts." The same people who would never blindly accept a Bush Admin figure will blindly accept an anti-Bush figure. And, both sides will then forget, or guess on air, how many people whould have died, and it would have to be something of a time value calc, if Iraq had NOT been invaded. And all of this so far is without also weighing the relative value of lives, US vs Iraqi, peaceful vs. warmongering, educated vs ignorant, and so on. IOW, these are impossible calculations.
So, did we overreact to 9/11, or properly react? My point was and is that it isn't possible to know, it's only possible to--with bias--guess, claim, propagandize, lawyer, etc.
Caledonian, joking in which way?
If you can't make the argument that the invasion is saving lives, and if you can't make the argument that it's costing lives, you don't belong in the argument.