If you strap a bomb to yourself and walk into a crowded bus station... you may be a terrorist.
If you fly a commercial jet into a building killing thousands of civilians... you may be a terrorist.
If you ram a boat filled with explosives into another boat... you may be a terrorist.
If you drive a truck filled with explosives into an embassy... you may be a terrorist.
In other words, I find your first question laughable.The folks we are going after in Afghanistan are definately terrorists or members of terrorists "enablers". I really hope that is not what you meant by your questioning. If you don't understand that these folks are terrorists (by any definition) then, I'm affraid I can't help you. Oh, and by the way, we at least were civil enough to declare two to four weeks prior to that we would be dropping bombs as a sort of heads up to their civilians. The Al Quada didn't show us the same courtesy with the Trade Center or the Pentagon...

If you mean is a relativistic way, how do I differentiate the suffering of the Afghan civilians with the people of New York? I don't. The suffering is just as great. How can I then justify feeling that this is a just cause with the people suffering in Afghanistan? Tough question, but one I can answer. Their suffering was great before we came in there. These people (the Taliban and terrorists) would have done something sooner or later to a "less pacifistic" culture that may have not have used "smart" weapons that actually do minimize civilian casualties. In the greater scheme of things, I truly believe that we (as the remaining superpower) are actually helping the Afghan people (as a whole) by this action - at least half of their population of the XX chromosome. It is not as if this action is not in any way justified... We were provoked. So, in a nutshell, the brutality of this war, when done, may provide a greater good for most of the Afghan people as well as rid the world of people the world should be rid of. In essence, there is a potential for a greater good. I am cynical, but humanistic and somewhat of an optimist. I don't believe other than our flagrant materialist tendencies, the US is all that bad.

I work with a great deal of foreigners (at a major international university), including Afghani's and Pakistani's and am not one who is into villifying people because they fall under any label. The statements that I made above are in large part parroting of what my Afghani friends have said. I still stand by the statement that this is a "just" war (Using the Christian concept of a just war stated in the 60's) on the whole.