Desp.. your opening comment intrigues me a little because you say that you are more hawkish than I am, but I cannot determine from your profile where you reside. This may be a slight amount of prejudice on my part, but I would expect the more hawkish to be American yet your spelling gives you away as British. I make no more of it than that. Each to their own, and you are as entitled to your perspective as am I. At least you recognise your hawkish approach.
I would disagree with your comment that the Arab world may have been more civilised 900 years ago, but less civilised now than the western world. If we look at the reasoning behind many of the Arabic practices you will see that they are grounded in reason. The practice of making women wear the chador has its origins in the men of the middle east being less restrained in their sexual practices than Mohammed deemed was good for them. In order to protect the women the practice of wearing the veil came about. Some historians argue that by covering the woman's face a man would find it harder to determine age. As age is a mark of respectibility, older women were treated much better than younger women. The same is true of te practice of men chaperoning women. This was to afford them some protection when travelling. Even the more fundamentalist aspect of not educating women comes from the role of the mother as the cornerstone of the family. It is not true to say that the more fundamentalist muslims deny women all education, rather they are educated to the extent they need to raise a family. Men in the middle east, I have noticed, are far more respectful of their wives than western men. I hear all to often disparaging comments made a bout wives, evemn in jest, which would never be made by Arabic men. While it may offend the sensibilities of more feminist women and liberal men that women do not have the access to universities and careers that they have here, it must be remembered that all things are relative. In a culture that promotes family values more than materialism and careerism, not all women want to work. In fact many moslem women would view a career as second place to raising a family.
As I said before, while it might be that we in the west find the treatment of women offensive we must ask ourselves "how do the women themselves feel?" They may or may not want our rightous indignations.
What must be remembered is that it is not the religion per se which does unspeakable things to women, rather the fallable interpretation of fallable man. I cannot see that any God who is hailed as merciful would want to demonstrate that mercy by having his creation destroy itself and wreak acts of mass murder on a fellow human in his name. As I have stated previously, if God, in His power, wanted to destroy whole nations he would surely do it, and do it without the aid of mankind.
So where does this leave us? If we can say that we believe that God did not wish to see the people in and around the WTC die for no reason, i am sure that He would not wish to see civilians die in Afghanistan. I am at least hopeful that as the days pass that any strikes will not be a knee-jerk reaction to the events of the 11/9. What does concern me still is the definition of any legitimate target. This along with the burden of proof that I would like to see still has not been met. As a voter I have the right to demand this evidence before any attacks have been carried out in my name.