I think it's one thing to try to understand the terrorists' mindset and their grievances (that's just good strategy), but completely another to in any way condone their methods.
I think, if anything, it should make us (Americans) that much more vigilant about what our country is doing in our name that makes us all complicit and therefore makes us all targets. I'm not saying in any way that we "deserved" the attacks, just that we can either look at it as a call to war that will prove their point, or we can look at it as a wake-up call and think about the world we want to live in and how best to attain that vision.
I definitely think we're blinded by media propaganda, and by group-think that refuses to acknowledge that Amurrica is the best goddamned country in the world that can do no wrong, love it or leave it. My country, right or wrong
. But we're also distracted by some of the completely apeshit stuff that's come out of the left wing of the peanut gallery. I think there has to be a middle ground by which we acknowledge our own part in "causing" the attacks but ensure our safety and bring those who attacked us to justice.