In yesterday's letter, "Fear may be country's true war after attacks," Simon Lobdell stated: "We fight so as not to look up into the sky waiting to die, as do the people of Afghanistan." You may romanticize the truth all you want, all it will get is another 5,000 dead at the hands of the Al-Qaida.

There is a tremendous difference between our military actions in the Middle East and the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center. We are not fighting for the same cause. We are not alike.

The United States military has been waging precision strikes on military targets in response to an unprovoked attack of mass destruction on civilians. The fact that some people do not understand the difference is frightening.

All of the woes that the peaceful, law abiding people of Afghanistan suffer are due to their own government's actions. When Osama bin Laden organizes attacks against the United States, Israel, or any other nation, he is not acting as a freedom fighter.

He is not doing so in retaliation to injustice against him. His actions are simply acts of terrorism, aimed at innocent civilians.