"Indeed, I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just."

Thomas Jefferson

Okay!  It's time to look at the role the United States has played in the Muslim attacks against us both on American soil and abroad.

Going back to the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, now widely attributed to Hezbollah, our marines were there to protect the interests of Israel in Lebanon.  And we were not just sitting on our hands.  We were out patrolling and rounding up dissidents.  Hezbollah did not appreciate our presence, to say the least.  

And, to be perfectly honest, just what right did we have to come into their country on behalf of another country that had demonstrated it was perfectly capable of fighting its own battles?  

Another instance of our interference in Middle Eastern affairs was our support of Iraq in its war with Iran. ( Yes, it's the same Iraq lead by the same man, Saddam, whom Bush later called one of the three Axis of Evil and attacked.)  That resulted in the kidnapping of a number of Americans in retaliation by Iran.

In April of 1986, a bomb exploded in a discotheque in West Berlin, killing two people, one an American soldier. It was unquestionably an act of terrorism.

Libya's tyrannical leader, Muammar Khadafi, had a record of involvement in terrorism, although in this case there seemed to be no clear evidence who was responsible.

Nevertheless, President Reagan ordered that bombers be sent over Libya's capital of Tripoli, killing perhaps a hundred people, almost all civilians.  One of the targets was the home of Khadafi.  He was away but his wife and one of his daughters were among the casualties.

Secretary of State Weinberger and Reagan quickly wrapped themselves in the American flag, justifying the bombing as retaliation for the bombing in Germany.  American citizens, politicians, and reporters fell right in behind them.

Hardly a whisper about the United States being guilty of terrorism itself; but if we are to apply the accepted definition of terrorism as the act of deliberately killing innocent people to make a political point, then this was indeed an act of terrorism.
Sadly, we live in a world where we are asked to make a choice between one kind of terrorism and another.   There is no doubt, as you know if you read my previous post, that the Quran teaches that Muslims are justified in retaliating against acts of aggression against them and their religion--an eye for an eye.
So, is an act of "aggression," by the United States any more morally right than the same act by a third-world country not even as big as one of our states?
In the endless exchange of "terrorist" acts, each side claims it is retaliating.  The bombing of the discotheque, if we assume Khadifi was behind it, may have been for our killing of 35 Libyan seaman patrolling in the international waters of the Gulf of Sidra, just as we were.
What were they doing there?  The same as we .. patrolling for terrorists.  Libya is part of the volatile Middle East where Israel is a constant worry.  But it hardly got a mention in the American media.
Then came the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which we now know was Khadifi's retribution for the Tripoli air raids.
The next major act against the United States was the suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.  Though Clinton was almost sure it was the work of al-Qaeda, he did not have definitive proof.
Nonetheless, he warned the Taliban in Afghanistan that he would attack them for harboring terrorists and began drawing up a plan to do just that, but he kept waiting for clearance to fly over Uzbekistan and confirmation that Bin Laden had masterminded the Cole attack. 
He told Chris Wallace of Fox News this in a televised interview after he left office as well as that he had given the CIA an order to kill Bin Laden, but that they hadn't got the job done.
In December of 2000, just before he left office, the CIA confirmed that al-Qaeda was indeed responsible for the Cole bombing.  Clinton passed this information on to Bush, but the Bush administration did nothing with it.
The fact that neither Clinton nor Bush did anything in retaliation for the Cole bombing both surprised and emboldened Bin Laden, who then gave the go ahead for the planes to crash into the twin towers, the Pentagon, and either the White House or the Capitol building.
Of course, Bush did go into Afghanistan after 9/11, but he took his eye off the ball for some unknown reason at just the opportune moment when he had Bin Laden running and turned to Iraq.   
That led to some major repercussions with the Muslim people, the effects of which we are feeling every day.
So, this cat and mouse game of retaliation continues with no sign of either side relenting.  I think we can all agree that the United States has certainly done its share in encouraging this hatred that some of the more violent sects of Muslims have toward us. Our hands are not nearly as clean as some would like us to believe.