I don't want to jump the gun on his motivations yet. It still smells more like "crazy" than "plot."

That being said, we did discuss this during the Iraq war. My view on it was that attacks specifically on military targets were technically not terrorism, even things like roadside bombs.

An interesting way to look at it is to imagine if, say, the French Resistance was doing it during the Nazi occupation (I am NOT drawing parallels to the French Resistance and Nazis, just setting up a situation familiar to most WWII movie fans). I don't recall anyone seeing these movies having trouble with "Marie" dynamiting a bridge as the line of Panzers drove onto it.

This makes it a bit easier to see where the lines are. Marie wouldn't blow up French civilians to get at the enemy, or worse, just to make a point. Marie would not hide ammunition or other military targets in a French kindergarten, bomb a marketplace, or blow up that bridge if some kids were on it. Marie would never, ever go into Germany, find a tavern full of farmers or a marketplace full of women and children, and blow it up.

This gets into some dark territory. "Marie the Brave Resistance Fighter" is a movie stereotype. In real life, maybe Marie would have blown up that bridge with kids on it if it was the only chance to destroy a major military target. I don't know enough of the history of what actually happened.

During the real WWII organized conventional military forces bombed the living shit out of civilian cities if there were military targets in them. No doubt, if they could have, the Allies would have used laser-guided precision cruise missiles to take out JUST the munitions factory or JUST the submarine docks, but that wasn't what happened. Even then, these places, by their nature, often have civilians working in them.

These are not easy questions. I think it's clear that Western military forces have a record of at least trying not to harm civilians, especially in recent years, often resulting in policies that greatly increase Western casualties. On the other hand, organizations like al Qaeda have often gone a long way out of their way to deliberately target the innocent. Is intent that important? I like to think it means something.

Remember, all of this applies during an active war. The 9/11 attacks were pure terrorism, even the attack on the Pentagon.