Hrm...I was just going to dismiss your point, but I'm not certain what you meant, so I'll cut you some slack. Are you saying that Clinton was claiming that the terrorist attacks were justified because America has done bad things in the past? I've read the speech (not a pleasant task), and that wasn't it. It was not a good speech, by any stretch of the imagination, but he was not even hinting that the attacks were justified. Now, if you're suggesting that America has never engaged in institutional Bad Behavior, and suggesting that we have vindicates the terrorists, that's another matter. In that case, Clinton is guilty (he did say that America has done shameful things in the past), but we have done shameful things the past, and that in no way vindicates any terrorist activity.
I'll grant you that he did "state" that the attacks of Sept. 11th were due to the issues of 100 years ago. But I will say this...the Pilgrams that came over here to America did not find this nation on slavery. And if he's going to mention slavery then he needs to mention that Cherokees had slaves. That blacks sold blacks into slavery at times in Africa.
Again, your point is well taken. Thank you for your clarification.
Terror, the killing of noncombatants for economic, political, or religious reasons has a very long history as long as organized combat itself, and yet it has never succeeded as a military strategy standing on its own, but it has been around a long time. Those of us who come from various European lineages are not blameless. Indeed, in the first Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it, and proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the Temple Mount. The contemporaneous descriptions of the event describe soldiers walking on the Temple Mount, a holy place to Christians, with blood running up to their knees. I can tell you that that story is still being told to today in the Middle East and we are still paying for it.
Here in the United States, we were founded as a nation that practiced slavery and slaves were, quite frequently, killed even though they were innocent. This country once looked the other way when significant numbers of Native Americans were dispossessed and killed to get their land or their mineral rights or because they were thought of as less than fully human and we are still paying the price today. Even in the 20th century in America people were terrorized or killed because of their race. And even today, though we have continued to walk, sometimes to stumble, in the right direction, we still have the occasional hate crime rooted in race, religion, or sexual orientation. So terror has a long history.
OK, explain to me how that is aying anything but America is reaping what we sowed in our past!