Will there be another "9/11" ?

I agree with the bulk of your message, but I will point out that this section is factually incorrect: WWII was practically defined by the extent of the waring parties willingness to try and raze each other in submission - have you not heard of the blitz? Or watched 'Memphis Belle'? My own city, Coventry, was practically flattened during the 2nd world war - you can still see the bomb craters dotted around undeveloped land in the city and see it in the architecture of the buildings. At the same time this was happening the US (primarily), Britain and her allies were dropping bombs willy-nilly on German targets.In another example, King Richard the Lionheart (as he is ironically known) slaughtered Muslim hostages to gode Saladin into strategically foolish attacks and massacared the women and children inside Jerusalem when he captured it.The idea that civilians are not a legitimate target is a very modern one.

Indeed there is. I think, however, that is inaccurate to view the difference between terrorism and traditional warfare being the targetting of 'soft targets'. Traditional warfare involves plenty of destruction of 'soft targets', either casually or deliberately. Instead terrorism is distinguished by it's lack of targetting of hard targets.