[Jane C.]

On Sept. 11, thousands of innocent civilians were killed in the United States. But when innocent civilians are being killed in Afghanistan, apparently 94 percent of Americans are in favor of the military action. Americans: Can you explain why it's OK with you?

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Name : Jane C., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Lesbian, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Atheist, Age : 34, City : Edinburgh, State : NA Country : United Kingdom, Occupation : Writer, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Doug25617]

'Military Action' is a vague concept and covers a vast array of possible actions. Had the poll asked 'Are you in favor of the slaughter of innocents?' the response would likely have been much much lower. There are those Americans who believe in an eye for an eye. I find myself scoffing at the Taliban spokespeople crying about innocents injured or killed in light of the 6000 innocents killed in New York and Washington. There are also those who believe in 'acceptable losses' in military action, a small number of civilian casualties during an attack on a nearby military structure. If you are attempting to argue that violence should not be met with violence, let's say I punch you in the face. You get up and make your peace and I punch you down again. How many times are you going to argue for peace in light of direct harm done to you before you retaliate?America has long been placed in the position of the world's peacekeeper: we take crap from other countries when without our protection those countries could easily be invaded. It's easy to whine about a peacful solution when you are not the responsive party.

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[Bill]

You cannot equate the attack on the United States, in which 5,000 civilians were targeted for death, to an ongoing military mission in which war has been declared to destroy the Taliban and Bin Laden and his clan of terrorists. Our military is not targeting civilians, it is targeting the terrorist network and the government that is protecting them. The U.S. government has repeatedly declared that we are not targeting the Afghan people or Islam. Unfortunately, civilians get killed by accident in war. The Taliban can choose to end all of this by not harboring terrorists and turning over Bin Laden and his clan. I am fully in favor of this, as are the majority of Americans.

Trust me when I say this is not a tit-for-tat retribution. I had business relationships with four men who are missing and believed dead in the World Trade Center towers. My brother has an office in the Pentagon in Washington but was uninjured. This has touched me personally, yet I am not out for payback on the innocent Afghanis.

This act of cowardice has brought the United States to war, and we (with the help of our allies) will wipe the terrorists out, whoever and wherever they are, and regardless of the time it takes. There is a lot of hate being directed at us right now in the foreign press and in other media, and yes, this has been a wake-up call for America. We are calling in our chips for all the aid we have provided other countries over the years to help us win this war. Because, guess what? These terrorist scum are targeting people all over the world, not just Americans in the United States. And if Edinburgh gets targeted, you can bet your American friends will be there to help you. Twenty years ago, it would have been myself helping you; today it would be my sons. To quote our president: 'We will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail.'

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Name : Bill, Gender : M, City : n/a, State : NA Country : United States, 

[Michael20646]

If the purpose of our military action was to target innocent civilians at random and to inflict 'terror' on them, then you would find that 100 percent of Americans would be opposed to that sort of activity. The Taliban - owned and operated by Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda - set out to target and kill innocent civilians on Sept. 11. They succeeded. And now they must suffer the consequences of that immoral behavior.

Unlike the attack Sept. 11, we gave the Taliban and Afghan people plenty of warning before commencing the targeting of military objectives - warnings and targeting that very well may cost additional American, British and other Allied lives because we seek to minimize civilian casualties. Had we no compunction about the loss of innocent civilians in Afghanistan, they would be laid waste - and no food support would be sent to them, either.

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[JerryS]

This problem is relatively new, since for much of recorded history nobody made such fine distinctions. The enemy was the enemy: kits, cats, sacks and wives. Are civilian casualties 'OK'? No. Can they be avoided completely? Probably not. Does the blame lie with those whose bombs, aimed at military targets, incidentally kill civilians? Or does it lie with those who put military installations near civilians, or mingle their soldiers with the general population? Some of both. There is no perfect solution to this. War, or for that matter even civil police actions (a car chase, for example) always raises this issue. In the United States, some people have been agitating for rules that would, in effect, forbid the police from chasing suspects because there have been a few instances in which fleeing suspects crashed their cars and hurt bystanders. To hamstring the police by not allowing them to pursue any criminal with the wit to run away is, to me, silly. There are some risks that are simply the price of some expected good result, and that's life. The situation in Afghanistan is, unfortunately, similar. We should be as careful as we can, and guard against the temptation to (for example) turn the country into a radioactive field of glass, which we could do without putting our own people in harm's way; but this isn't a double standard. The terrorists did not accidentally kill a few civilians while attacking an army base, after all: they deliberately targeted civilians to achieve their goal of causing terror.

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[Naomi]

I am American and agree with you. It is not all Afghanis who are terrorists, just some. Why are we punishing everyone?

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[Summer]

I can't speak for every American, but I support our military action in Afghanistan for several reasons. As far as your question about innocent people being killed, this is why it is 'OK' with me: Innocent people are killed in every war. America is fighting a war right now, a war on terrorism. When the World Trade Center was bombed, many Afghanis were cheering in the streets. Americans are not cheering. We are scared and deeply saddened by the events of Sept. 11 and everything since. I, as I believe many Americans, never like to see innocent lives taken. Unfortunately, that's not always possible. Terrorism has to be stopped before it takes more lives.

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[Marco22197]

Contrary to what you may think, the media says that many Americans are in favor of the war in Afghanistan. I don't agree with a war in Afghanistan. I'm conflicted about what the United States should be doing. On one hand, war doesn't seem like the right resolution. On the other, if we don't do something, it will encourage others who want to do something terrible on our soil, and they'll think they can get away with it. It's not OK, but people are angry, and it's a blood-for-blood thing. People were killed who had nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy; they were killed simply for going to work.

Second, it wasn't only Americans who got killed - many people from around the world worked in those buildings and boarded those flights, and they were killed for nothing. What it comes down to is that it's not OK with all of us, but to some of us here, it's justification.

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[Matthew]

It is the same energy used by those responsible for the Sept. 11 massacre, but from another perspective. All action has a reaction. Now do you see?

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[Heather21464]

I wanted to clarify that your 94 percent number may be (must be) a little skewed. I'm not sure where you got it, but I have seen polls on CNN.com and other places, and I see very surprising (to me) results as far as the votes go. I wouldn't trust those numbers, and I don't. On CNN.com and other places, you do not get a representative sample of the population. You just get a sample of who was on-line that day and felt like voting. Also, I've noticed the questions on the news sites are asked occasionally in a manner that puts a value-judgment on the answer, rather than allowing a simple yes or no. So even if I felt that my answer was 'no,' the 'because' statement doesn't fit, so I choose 'yes,' or something to that effect. There are Americans who are for this retaliation, or whatever you want to call it. There are also many who don't believe it's the right solution. There are many angry, scared, confused, grieving people in the United States and in other countries, and I think that causes some knee-jerk reactions to the deaths of so many people in one day. On one hand, I agreed that some sort of immediate reaction by our government was/is necessary. On the other hand, I believe that more understanding of the situation and the consequences by the general population of any military actions is needed before such actions take place. My opinion is that much of the knee-jerk reaction of the desire for retaliation wouldn't have been so strong had people really stopped to think about the consequences. Hope that helps in your understanding of at least one American's thoughts on the subject.

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[Allison]

I can't speak for all Americans, but I can give you my opinion. In any other circumstance, the 94 percent (which I assume you saw in a poll or survey somewhere) would probably be much lower. I can't imagine many Americans feeling that it was OK to bomb Afghanistan, possibly killing innocents, just for the heck of it. We didn't even have a big military reaction the first time they bombed our Trade Center, nor when they blew a big hole in the side of the USS Cole. However, this time they went too far, and we had to do something. Unfortunately, that reaction will cost more innocent lives (ours and theirs). But hopefully, it will save even more lives down the line. So I don't think the 94 percent are in favor of going over and randomly mowing down Afghan women and children - I think they feel like it's justified in this situation.

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[Rick29759]

Americans do not favor innocent civilians being killed. Unfortunately, when responding to an attack, an act of war, sometimes civilians pay the price, no matter how careful the military response. Are you really unable to differentiate between crashing hijacked commercial airliners into densely populated office buildings (attacks, by the way, in which more Britons were killed than in any other terrorist acts) and military action designed to destroy the organization that carried out such acts? When Britain defended herself against Nazi aggression in World War II, German civilians were killed by British bombs. Britains didn't 'favor' killing these civilians; it was a necessary part of defending their country from barbarism. You have it backward. The United States did nothing to merit the viscious attacks of Sept. 11. Any unfortunate civilian deaths in Afghanistan resulting from the U.S. response should be blamed on the terrorists and the Taliban, not the United States. Not to respond aggressively would only encourage terrorist acts, not only in the United States but virtually anywhere in the world. Such a stance is morally indefensible. Here is an article from the Sunday Times (of London): www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/09/23/stiusausa01024.html

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[Ronald-V29447]

I am repeating what I heard on a talk show: When the World Trade Center was bombed, the perpetrators intentionally took innocent lives. The U.S. military is bombing the military targets and is unintentionally killing the innocent. In any war, innocent people are killed. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are examples. There are no winners in a war. Both sides sustain major casualties.

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[Steve27847]

I guess since there hasn't been an innocent massacred in Europe in, say, the last 10 minutes, you can now ask this question of us. The talk in the United States is that we have been too predictable and passive in the past. Inserting the element that we might react with overkill might cause future terrorists to rethink the outcome of their actions. People need to take into their calculations what might happen on the homefront when they blissfully convince some moron to crash a commercial airliner. I am truly sorry that an occasional retaliatory bomb goes astray, but the world needs to know that these are now the rules. Afghan civilians have had a month to plan - far more than the World Trade Center victims were given.

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[J.D.]

The difference is simple. We are not targeting innocent civilians. U.S. military forces are making every attempt to minimize civilian casualties. The terrorists made no such attempts, and thousands of innocent civilians are now dead. In fact, we are dropping thousands of packages containing food for Afghan civilians who would otherwise starve during the winter. Granted, there are no Arabic instructions on the packages, but then again, the Taliban excludes women from being educated, so many young mothers would not be able to read them, anyway. We send them food, the terrorists send us Anthrax-laden mail. Are you suggesting we allow these attacks to go unanswered? What end would that accomplish?

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