When the Sikh separatists blew up the Air India flight 182 on June 1985 that killed 331 people, no one called this an act of war, it was murder, or terrorism. No one seriously called the Oklahoma bomb an act of war. Likewise, 9-11 was never an act of war. Only nation states can go to war and Al-Qaeda is not a State (not even a state of mind). Political violence can by non-State actors can be a rebellion, a revolution, terrorism or mass murder, but not war. By declaring 9-11 an act of war the US blundered badly. It validated Al-Qaeda’s actions and gave them a ‘legitimacy” (not the best word but the only one I could come up with) in the eyes of their target audience that they do not have. It was an act of politically motivated mass murder, pure and simple. The goal of the US leadership should be to arrest the main players in Al-Qaeda, wherever they were and by whatever means necessary, bring them to trail, and, assuming they are found guilty, execute them as common criminals.

If, for example, an American were to go to France and beat the first Frenchman he met to death because he found the French annoying, or hated their politics, or whatever, this would be murder, not war. IF he killed 3000 Frenchmen, it would still be murder, not war, whatever his motive.