"You actually believe that because we are prosporous as a nation and our policies don't benefit everyone in the world, that we should accept some responsibility for being targets of terrorist attack? Sounds like you're justifying terrorist actions and implying that we should feel guilty for pissing them off and accept our punishment".

Mark ,I am glad to hear that you and your family have done well living in America. It was not my point ,at all, that terrorist actions are justified and that Western societies should accept such acts as some sort of penatent measure for being successful.
I was just trying to say that if we are maintaining our lifestyles at the expense of other people or societies and in doing so are impeding their progress or otherwise repressing them (intentionally or not) through our foreign policies or socio-economic programs, then how can we NOT at least explore the possibility that we are in some measure responsible for the conditions which help to spawn terrorism? Responsible for terrorists? Never. Contributing to a situation which causes entire sections of people to become desperate, marginalized or lose hope. Is it not at least worth considering?
How do you propose to end the cycle of violence? More soldiers? Larger prisons? Further restricting civil liberties? I don't claim to have the answers but unless we seek out and rectify the causes of hatred and desperation I don't see how we can ever be rid of acts of terrorism.

"When I see Americans like myself I see decent people who are working to survive just like anyone else who lives in any industrialized nation"
Agreed. Americans are decent people working to make a living just like anyone else in an industrialized nation. However, therein lies part of the problem. We are fortunate to live in an industrialized nation which possesses the ability to exploit resources from around the world. Do we work any harder than those decent people working to survive in non-industrialized countries? Is it fair that they are paid third world wages and are stripped of their resources while most of the economic benefit from those resources are exported back to us? Just so that we can go to Wal-Mart or Zellers and buy three of everything for $5.97. Perhaps if we paid more for our resources (both natural and human) and left a greater portion of the economic wealth in these "host" nations there would be a little less desperation, a little more hope and a lot less hate and violence.
Of course this a greatly oversimplified aspect of a larger picture and many of the issues surrounding terrorism are cultural or historical and not economical at all.
To be clear I am not trying to say that the West is necessarily the main cause of these attacks. There is plenty of ignorance and misinformation on their side as well. Not to mention a willingness to blame the West for all troubles and hardships............ real or imagined.

Wow, I promised myself I wouldn't tumble down this slippery slope and yet here I am over the edge and picking up speed