Sorry for interrupting ... Is it possible that we, as "leftists", should be considering that thing called class, before we get into (reactionary) generalisations about whole nationalities?
This cuts both ways:
1. It was mostly working class people who suffered the consequences of 9-11; what does it achieve to tell them they "deserved" it? Who "deserved" it more, the white collar workers on the 50th floor or the immigrant cleaners at ground level?
2. Imperial ideologies and cheap Nikes aside --- the benefits of being wage earners (or welfare recipients) anywhere in the first world don't stack up well against the benefits of indigenous capitalists anywhere in the third world.
Nationalisms and their inverse, national insults, make great weapons for the ruling class. I don't think this is PC pedantry; I think it's common sense proletarian politics.
Regards,
Grant.