Monday,  yesterday in New York City, Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistan-born, naturalized U.S. citizen, who tried to blow up of Times Square with an exploding van, plead guilty to ten terrorism and weapons counts, crimes -- but he called it war. He calmly plead guilty, called himself a "Muslim soldier," defending Muslim people. He said that unless the US leave Muslim lands alone "we will be attacking the US" See the news video.

There are a lot of issues here. I shall deal with two.

First terrorism. The Associated Press reports that, U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum asked Mr. Shahzad repeatedly whether he had worried about killing children in Times Square. Mr Shahzad calm answer was, "One has to understand where I'm coming from, I consider myself ... a Muslim soldier." Mr. Shahzad said that he chose a warm Saturday night to set off his bomb because he knew the square would be crowded, and his bomb could injure and kill many people.

The second issue is the why? Mr Shahzad "dismissed the judge's question about the children by saying the U.S. didn't care when children were killed in Muslim countries. 'It's a war. I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people." Mr Shahzad said, "On behalf of that, I'm revenging the attack. Living in the United States, Americans only care about their people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die.' The judge asked Mr. "Shahzad if he understood that the people in Times Square might not have anything to do with what happened overseas. Mr. Shahzad answer, "The people select the government. We consider them all the same."

We are going to be living with this mess for a long time and we need to prepare ourselves. We need to look not only at what Mr Shahzad tried to do, but at the underlying causes that brought him to Times Square with a car bomb. What he did can not be justified. There is no way terrorism can be justified. Most often the weak and the innocent are the ones who suffer. What ever cause the terrorist thinks he is defending is not heard in the sounds of his exploding bombs and in the cries and screams of the survivors.

Mr Shahzad said he was financed, trained and directed by the Pakistan Taliban, a group of very horrible people, whom the government and people of Pakistan need to deal with, in a very forceful and final way, for the survival of Pakistan. We, Americans, need a government led by people smart enough to deal with both the Taliban Movement and with al-Qaeda, in a very smart and forceful way, or they will eventually deal with us, in a very forceful and final way. The best way for our government to deal with the Taliban and al-Qaeda is not with robot bombs, that kill innocent Pakistanis and Afghans, which only helps the Taliban and al-Qaeda with their recruitment. The best way is to get out of the way, so that the Muslims countries will fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda, which are a threat to their survival. The late Saddam Hussein, as bad as he was, understood the threat that al-Qaeda poses, and while he ran things in Iraq, there was no al-Qaeda in Iraq, because he fought them and kept them out. Nationalists will keep them out of their countries. Folks leaning on the American crutch will not. They will only create more Taliban and al-Qaeda

In the meantime, we should be thankful for our security forces here at home. It's too bad that our government's foreign activities are making the job of home security harder.