blowing up american soliders is not an act of terrorism. it is an act of urban geurrila war. blowing up civillians is terrorism. all soldiers are legitimate targets.

if i remember correctly recently attacks have went up against the army and down against civillians. with the terrorist somehow able to get their hands on army piercing explosives it's now even easier to blow up your local army convoy. and after the bridge incident (noone here cared cos it was the same day as katrina) public opinion has turned grossly against the insurgency in iraq. killing 1,000 people in a day didn't make anyone happy. and blowing up the army is strategically better anyway. they are of course the problem for al qaeda not the civillian population.

it was seen that killing innocents wasn't winning al-qaeda any amount of favour. it was supposed to get more recruits by showing what turmoil the americans brought. but now they have better equipment (a level of sophistication that took the ira 25 years to get) they are better of just blowing up american and british soldiers.

and that is legitimate action really. not terrorism.

and venom it was not about the oil it was about a tactical positiion next to iran. allowing us to invade from 2 borders.