Hi Kevin

>'Displeases' - right, we are displeased when someone attacks us on our soil, without provocation.

I don't normally get involved in these kinds of threads. However, the displeasure at being attacked on your own soil is noteworthy. Americans were truly shocked at this act of terror and rightly so. But, part of that shock comes from, as far as I can recall, having never been attacked on your own soil in the modern era by a foreign power. Americans, for the first time, suddenly and finally felt the fear and insecurity that comes from being attacked at "home" - this truly affected the psyche of the American people. Unfortunately, the rest of the world has never felt the sanctity of living in "Fortress America" - most of Europe and Asia has been bombed and attacked pretty much relentlessly in "modern" times.

The last time your soil was attacked by "foreigners" was Pearl Harbour - this wasn't mainland USA mind. Your country felt the same displeasure/shock then - we [the UK] stood alone and had been almost single handedly fighting the Germans for some three years by that stage and that single attack on your soil by the Japanese finally brought you into WW2. If that hadn't happened, the USA may have been prepared to watch the UK become part of the German empire.

>You guys are speaking as if 9/11 never happened. You don't fight terrorism by internal bickering, rationalization, or wishing it away - you cut its head off.

I think that's somewhat harsh. We have stood by the USA since this event and have paid the price for doing so.

>Listen 'mate, if on 9/11, someone flew airplanes into the building where the Queen Mother was living, you Brits would want to bomb the bloody piss out of those responsible.

I don't think so, after clearing our final WW2 mortgage debt to the USA only last year (that's what friends do - lend you money at a favorable commercial rate in a crisis), we wouldn't have the resources to seek out and bomb the perpetrators. Our armed forces are some of the best in the world yet they are undervalued by our government as evidenced by the perpetual underfunding and the scandalous way they are equipped, housed and treated both on and off the battlefield.

-=Gary