Doug...

The reason I say that using the UN as the mediating source should this turn out to be an actual 'act of war' is to prevent it becoming a REAL war. In theory, that's what the UN is there for - to act as a mediating body between sovereign states in disagreements or conflicts. The US government may feel it has a "moral" right to pound whomever did this into small, bloody bits - but that is retaliation of the same nature as the attack against us, just dressed up as 'morally correct'. At the very least, other terrorist organizations would easily be able to use it as evidence that the US is 'evil' and step up their actions accordingly. At the very worst, it could escalate into open warfare.

By going 'through channels', the hope would be that at the very least the UN body would pressure the agressor to hand over those deemed responsible. It's entirely possible that the UN would even allow an expeditionary force to go in and take said agressor - it's happened before, though not with spectacular levels of success (but then again, the US ain't got such a hot record on that kind of expedition either).

I stand by my assertion that a blind, reflexive attack against whomever masterminded the attacks has a probability of causing more harm than good. We still don't know WHO did it, though. And until that is definitively established, any talk of retribution is just so much pissing into the wind.

M