>> the US government will make it seem like they started it
This has been done extensively with the war on terror. The idiocy of the "they hate our freedoms" statement has been weighing on me lately. I agree that caving to a terrorist's demands immediately is a bad thing to do because it encourages a violent approach to change, which we shouldn't do. But shouldn't we also take a step back and say "hey - we're killing people on the other side of the world - maybe we should stop!". If "they hate our freedoms" they must be pretty happy to see what the Patriot Act has done in response - because evidently we gave them exactly what they wanted.
This has been done extensively with the war on terror. The idiocy of the "they hate our freedoms" statement has been weighing on me lately. I agree that caving to a terrorist's demands immediately is a bad thing to do because it encourages a violent approach to change, which we shouldn't do. But shouldn't we also take a step back and say "hey - we're killing people on the other side of the world - maybe we should stop!". If "they hate our freedoms" they must be pretty happy to see what the Patriot Act has done in response - because evidently we gave them exactly what they wanted.