You've hit on an important point...
And missed it entirely. You write:
"Raining 500 pounders on a foreign country where the majority of its population are at the verge of starvation and disease is self-defense?"
Which can be the only semblance of a point you have made in this entire thread. But where did you get the crazy idea that this is self defense? This is an offensive war to kill a group of people who have declared war on us. It is in our interest to kill them rather than let them fester and grow in Afghanistan and yes, the best defense is a good offense, but what do you mean, defense? Well, the problem further stated is such... The government of those poor people (the average Afghani citizen) chose a very poor friend to defend. The Taliban, by their refusal to hand over Bin Laden (which makes all of your points about international law, presenting evidence, etc... so much horseshit - The prosecution does not tip it's hand before the accused is detained), invited us and the bombs in.
As to Cuba, Nicaragua, Somalia, and on and on. The COLD WAR IS OVER. All the happy horseshit about propping up tyrants who would wave our flag (as opposed to the hammer and sickle) is also over (let's pray). And the rhetoric surrounding the evil US and it's naive populous is over (should be - understand?), because it no longer applies. If it makes you happy, maybe we are paying for our Cold War sins now, but what we are doing militarily is ABSOLUTELY the right thing at this point in our history. When we allow Israel to do what is necessary, it will also be the right thing. Something that seems to get lost in these discussions is the fact that we have trained and armed Israel to the teeth. Militarily, they could have expanded their borders long ago... We have been chanting restraint. We won't much longer. The Arab countries that now "hate" us, are really going to hate us when we "allow" Israel to take care of their business.
When you think it's okay to target civilians in New York or Jerusalem and think of them as "military" victories... You most probably aren't long for this world. I would argue that this is just one more negative consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union. If nothing else, the Soviets in their hayday were able to keep Yugoslavia together by threat of abject violence. The same for Nicaragua and Cuba... Sort of the Yin with the Yan... The vacuum left by their disintegration is the root cause of much of the mess... And, like it or not, the remaining superpower is obligated to clean it up.
