I have read with great interest the various posts here and elsewhere on the subject of terrorism.

Islam condemns any acts of terrorism against innocent people. Islam is completely against taking one's own life. So-called suicide attacks are therefore against Islamic teachings. Islam does not propagate tit-for-tat retaliation even against attacks on innocent Muslims.

The reality of the situation is that more innocent Muslims have died and suffered at the hands of the Americans and their allies than the 6,000 odd Americans (and others) in the Sept 11 attacks in the US. But who cares? They're only Muslims.

It does not matter that millions of Afghans may be killed or become homeless; they're only Muslims, but America must have its revenge.

Despite the fact that some oppressive 'Muslim' governments may agree to and even support such unwarranted action, does America expect Muslims to stand idly and watch this happen?

Tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, even babies, have been killed, massacred and driven from their homes by an Israeli regime that is supported, funded and armed by America and many more still live in fear every day as they have for the last 50 years. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed directly in American air raid attacks or have died or suffered from malnutrition and other diseases and deprivation as a result of American-led sanctions. But who cares? They're only Muslims.

The reality is that the so-called 'Islamic' terrorists who are reacting in frustration (even if wrongly) to these and thousands of other acts of oppression committed by America and its allies against Muslims are in no position to commit acts of violence on the scale that America and its allies can and have.

The further reality is that it is America and its voracious business interests backed by its ultra-violent military might that have been and are the greatest threat to world peace than the frustrated actions of any purported terrorists.

America is the greatest terrorist nation of all time and will probably remain so for a long time to come.

Ponder this:

"The United States spends more on arms annually, US$275 billion presently, than the rest of the Security Council combined. US arms expenditures are approximately 25 times the gross national product of Iraq. The US has in its stockpiles more nuclear bombs, chemical and biological weapons, more aircraft, rockets and delivery systems in number and sophistication than the rest of the world combined. Included are 20 commissioned Trident II nuclear submarines any one of which could destroy Europe." - Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney-General, in a letter to the UN, November 1998.

Unless America stops or is stopped, the backlash against its foreign policies, excursions, incursions and attacks as well as active support for oppression of all kinds around the world will result in an ever-increasing vicious cycle of violence that will affect innocent civilians of all nationalities and religions.

Unfortunately, the way America and its media have played this deadly game now threatens to turn it all into a conflict of Western versus Islamic civilisation, which it is not.