A generality: what is said in a closed group can not be condemned as in bad taste. However offensive, the points raised by Pravin are extreme but logical and must be so examined.

When I refer to "America" it was clearly meant to be the entity called the "Federal Government of US" not the innocent American people.

This flies in the face of reality established over last six decades that no one can claim escape from law on grounds of lack of knowledge. At least in my weltanschauung, you must also establish lack of knowledge ability, i.e. you COULD NOT have reasonably known. It applies to speed limit - once posted the sign tells you the law. How can American citizens claim innocence of what their government was doing? The point is that  "terrorism is bad" has nothing to do with semantics of "America".

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When we see the "actions" and "reactions" of national governments  with a historical time perspective then it is very difficult to pinpoint whether a "response" is an action or a reaction. Therefore, it is always difficult to see a connection between the "ones who suffered" and the "responsible party". Nevertheless, the consequences of the actions of the national governments are always to be borne by innocent people.

Misapplied truisms make sense for lawyers and politicians, but not engineers. Semantics/Action in physics and Semantics/action in social behavior are entirely different things. There is only sometimes social/reaction - most people have more urgent/important things to do. criminals know it too well. Challenging US is stupid because they can ensure more than equal reaction. Unfortunately, action against India has no serious reaction - in fact there are moronic apologists who deify this "tolerance".

I would also like to respond to Guru's comments :

1a.  "  how many Indians would support nuking pak nuclear facilities ? " I would not support this action as the solution lies in somehow solving the Kashmir problem politically. Nuking will only lead to a chain of actions and reactions and only sufferers would be the innocent people of India and pak.

I would support provided that we got most of them and could repeat this many times. Arguments I would have are

1. There is no such thing as limited civilized war

2. Agra summit indicates to me neither India, nor Pakistan would/could give.

3. Kashmir militants would continue their murderous madarsa ways and radicalization of Indian Muslims.

1b. "If the Japanese had the bomb first, they would have used it". This is only a speculation. But for the sake of argument - if Japanese had bombed the US / allies, then some terrorist would have been born in US to attack Japan. Sufferers would only have been a different set of innocent people.

Current bombing of WTC is just kamikaze japans tactics with some initial success. There are technological solutions which will take some time to install, but once installed, the Americans will become even more immune. Starting American Indians, Spanish, Germans, Japanese etc let 400 years of history say this - Americans don't listen to force, only to logic and to money! In fact all social groups which are not technologically equal like Korav and Pandav were.

2. "Israel was created in 1948? or was it there for the millennia?" If this is your logic for justifying US action in the creation of Israel, then please request President George Bush to return the state of California to Mexico or better still ask him to handover the govt to the "red Indians" who were the original owners.

Exactly. Resort to history to justify claims is dumb.

3. "Russia had no business in Afghanistan" Do you mean to say that US had some business in Afghanistan and that is why they financed the creation of mujahedeen and creation of the terrorist state of Afghanistan ?

Americans financed Sicilian mafia too. They were fighting Russia then and inadvertently created a terrorist state. So now it has to go - the battle is not done yet.

4. "Bombay bomb blasts .... " You have totally missed the point I wanted to make. When this terrorist act was inflicted on India then it was a simple act of an "Indian citizen with cozy links to the political establishment in India" but when US is hit by terrorists then it becomes "Crime against humanity".

Indians said it then too as "Crime against humanity". To think that Indian politicians can't use bombastic language that costs them nothing, is wrong. The essential difference is that people are now listening. And I would strongly implore people like you Pravin to understand that once tech solutions are in place, the costs would only allow rich countries like US to protect themselves. The worst situation for India is a stalemate at govt level with near unchecked violence in Kashmir. I was appalled to see the rise of Madarsa type education in India. By my estimate, the resulting powder keg will blow within 10 years.