"Furhtermore if there goal is to pull us out of Israel and away from the Palestines, and the result of the attack is a counterattack on the Palestines (Arafat denounced the attacks, so this is all just speculation of course), then the attack accomplished the exact opposite of its goal."
It is much more likely that their goal *is* to get us to retaliate, thus killing more innocent people and generating more anti-American hatred. If these terorists can successfully pull off such a sophisticated attack, they probably don't have any illusions about what the U.S. response will be. Nor are other demented individuals capable of mass killing likely to be deterred by the prospect of "their own people" getting killed in retaliation, wether they are suicidal or not.
This is not to say that we shouldn't try to stop would be terrorists before they strike when we can find them, but we should take great care not to kill more innocent people and escalate the hatered and violence between the U.S. and much of the rest of the world.
Slashdot Mirror
"Furhtermore if there goal is to pull us out of Israel and away from the Palestines, and the result of the attack is a counterattack on the Palestines (Arafat denounced the attacks, so this is all just speculation of course), then the attack accomplished the exact opposite of its goal."
It is much more likely that their goal *is* to get us to retaliate, thus killing more innocent people and generating more anti-American hatred. If these terorists can successfully pull off such a sophisticated attack, they probably don't have any illusions about what the U.S. response will be. Nor are other demented individuals capable of mass killing likely to be deterred by the prospect of "their own people" getting killed in retaliation, wether they are suicidal or not.
This is not to say that we shouldn't try to stop would be terrorists before they strike when we can find them, but we should take great care not to kill more innocent people and escalate the hatered and violence between the U.S. and much of the rest of the world.