This whole scenario has nothing to do with self-defense. First off, the 90% did not have their rights to self-defense violated by some foreigners. They were violated by the government, which forbids people from defending themselves and arrogates responsibility for defense to itself.
Can you imagine a private company taking this approach? No security firm would ever forbid you from stopping a burglar at your door. No supermarket would forbid you from growing your own food. No car company would forbid you from walking. Nor would anyone buy products from companies that adopted such tyrannical policies.
Yet the government forbids you from acting in self-defense. That alone shows that it works by force, not by the wishes of its citizens (as you claim). As a consequence of this government violation of people's rights, some foreign criminals attacked and the people could not defend themselves. The government, incompetent as always, failed to defend them either.
Since the violation of rights comes from the government, any consequent actions it may take are also illegitimate. Unsurprisingly, they are further violations of rights, in this case the rights of the foreigners it attacks in order to justify its usurpation of your rights.
Bombing a foreign country is not about not self-defense. It's not even about bringing the perpetrators to justice. No, bombing is, as you say, about retaliation. About revenge. How exactly does killing more innocents, in this case Afghani peasants, serve the cause of justice?
Of course, none of this addresses the original point I made anymore than your response does. The government violated my right to self-defense. Why am I forced to support the wars it undertakes to justify that usurpation of my rights?
what I meant by "self-defense" is national defense. On the individual rights level, retaliatory violence is not initiated violence, hence is justified against anybody. So, on the national level, retaliatory war against any entity that attacked American citizens is justified.
Since Demidog brought up the issue of consent to foreign policy, I pointed out to him that we as a nation can have only one foreign policy. So no matter what our foreign policy is, there will be some who are unhappy with it. My position in that is that in matters of foreign policy the government should do whatever it thinks our national interest is, and the voters can provide a correction every election cycle. That is not the same as saying that it should do whatever the majority wants.