"Ah yes, "garbage" and "cracked"- stirring analysis. Don't agree with every word of Hitch but the basic point is sound -- to the extent that any action issued from the Taliban-based world of oppression, the discussions of US crimes "causing" the mass murder of Sept 11 is ridiculous. Hitch clearly notes the tragedy of blowback from the US's own crimes in supportin the Taliban in the first place, but to give any moral status or even link of mass murder as connected to legitimate struggles against injustice is an obscenity."
There's been one thing pickin at my brain since it happened though. Like the idea that there's some sort of critical mass of, if not approval then acceptance, by the populations surrounding these thugs, that is an emboldening (is that a word?) factor. Think for instance that the US had not used a double-standard in dealing with Palistine, etc, would this crime have still been a thinkable option ? I'm not so sure. That's assuming of course that the crime was committed by Taliban/bin Laden, which I don't. I've also wondered of the poso of a provocateur and facilitator among the extremists, but that's a different thread. ( All this public whining about not being able to gain intelligence in the ME because we're the white guys seems rather silly, therefore duplicious to me. We could recruit long-term Soviet agents but not Arabs?)