Senor --Yeah, but either way it's shortly thereafter. They also managed to bomb the Cole in the meantime. At least THAT was a military target."They bomb us, we bomb them..."Yeah, but that's too simple. Are you listening to what they're saying? Al Qaeda et al aren't engaging in tit-for-tat, they're fighting a war. You really think that if we just sat there and took it over and over again that they'd eventually stop? Yeah, a more enlightened US policy would be nice, but bin Laden et al have hardly demonstrated themselves to be interested in any of the niceties of democracy and human rights that concern US critics.And finally, yeah administration officials may be saying this, but why are you suddenly giving such credence to statements of the US government? You actually have confidence that they have a clue? In addition to the CYA aspect of these statements, they also benefit the Administration's political objectives.