It is NOT "a distinction without a difference." It is very likely that even if the US troops were not stationed in Saudi Arabia, OBL would have attacked the US. Furthermore, the plan and organization for the attack were in place when the US was pressuring Israel to make peace with the Palestinians - when, in fact, the US was helping the Palestinians to achieve statehood as it never has before. So it is illogical for OBL to claim that he did the attack to aid the Palestinians.
Now you are making my point for me. OBL attacked us because his lunatic belief system
demands him to. It doesn't matter if we are helping or hindering other Muslims. He, like Sgt. Akbar, must in the end, attack us because we don't subscribe to their death-cult sect(s) of Islam.
Well, that's because you are hunting just about any deer you see.
Come deer hunting with me sometime. Learn about it before you make statements that do not reflect the actual process. The sex of the animal, it's physical location, antlers vs. no antlers, and even it's species (there are 6 different ones in the lower 48 states alone) are all factors in whether or not shooting it would be legal. To put a finer point on it, when I am hunting for Blacktail deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus), I spend no time hunting where Columbia whitetail deer (Odocoileus viginianus leucurus) might also be likely to be found. But, even if I did, I would know the difference between the two. Ergo deer aren't "just deer" to me, nor are they to folks with training similar to mine.
You have a different take on what Malkin is trying to say than I do. Fair enough.
For me, what she is trying to say - to stretch the hunting analogy to its limit - is we are on a hunt for our very lives. We spend an inordinate amount of time searching for
all of the creatures in the forest without using any common sense. We are supposed to be looking for
our legal "deer", but we are so used to wasting our time screwing around, that when the legal "deer" pops up and says "HERE I AM! I'M GOING TO F_ING KILL YOU!!!!!" We do nothing.
The "deer" makes good on his promise, and lots of folks say to themselves "Gee...How did that happen?"