Devil's advocate dept: Osama is a lightweight.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Assume Osama Bin Laden is responsible for the terrorist attacks on September 11. OBL claims that Islam is at war with America.

During WWII, when the US was at war with Germany and Japan, a strategy evolved to kill as many civilians on the other side as possible to win the war. Cities in both countries were firebombed to kill tens of thousands of people in a single night. General Curtis LeMay, in charge of the firebombing of Japan’s cities, made sure that bombing patterns in Tokyo would create the most devestating firestorm possible. Hundreds of thousands of people died in these raids. And of course a couple of hundred thousand more died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Remember, these raids were not against any military targets. They were primarily designed to incinerate civilians. And apparently it was and is still believed in the US that this was justified as it was a part of war and the crimes of the German and Japanese governments were so great as to justifiy it.

Now OBL says that civilians in the US now must pay the price for the “crimes”, as he sees it, of the US government.

What do you think of this?

2

He’s not referring to WWII, so the point has no relevance.

3

Actually, RealityChuck, he is. Read any interview with OBL and he’s likely to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples of why his “jihad” should not feel guilty for killing US civilians.

It’s an apples to oranges comparison to be sure. The US used the A bombs to end WWII, OBL bombs civlians in an attemot to start a war. While it’s true that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cost many thousands of lives, it is also generally accepted that more lives would have been lost had the bombing not occurred and the war continued. OBL’s bombings are designed to incite more killing.

There are other flaws in the analogy as well. The US acted as a legitimate government in a declared war. OBL acts as a rouge individual in a personal campaign. galen’s question is valid, OBL’s assertions are not.