Seeing the creator when you look at an attacker

[Coordinate_Apotheosis]

That mosquito you killed, the ant you stepped on.  The animal you are eating.  The tea leaves you are drinking.  How does one find love of self and other as creator while assaulting another?

By making choices, one at a time, which reflect as closely as possible that whom you want to be.

How does the attacker in self defense love that whom they are not only defending against but also attacking?

You don't have to attack when defending self. Many martial arts teach this. That's what self-defense is from certain disciplines—not fighting, avoiding harm to everyone, using the energy of attack to deflect harmful contact. So, already in place before ever there is an attack, is the intention of doing no harm, and if you are trained in self-defense, you have the confidence to carry it out. This is not to say you may never be harmed or harm others in an altercation. But you have done what you can to the best of your abilities to be "as closely as possible that whom you want to be."

Blessed be those with the power to defend without ever actually launching an attack, sadly I don't think your average human being is learned in these methods of combat.  Rather, when I think of these scenarios, I imagine two people who have very little actual lethal combat experience.  Who will fight with fumbling thrown arms and inaccurate frenzied punches, clawing, biting, gripping.  I don't imagine someone pinning another down with a swift motion, I imagine it is much more gritty, much more involved, much more uncertain.

If I want to be alive, is it wrong to strike another to remain so?

I agree with you otherwise, but what about these less structured occurrences? The more 'common' ones, how do we go about these?