PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND THIS....killing of innocents..read on?

Question

Why do people, al queda in particular, want to kill innocent people? What do they have against us? I am American, by birth, but we do not choose where we are born. Just as no one in this world does. I am happy I live in the U.S. but since I am an American, does that make it ok for others to kill me? What did we, innocent people, do to deserve this? Why?

Answer 1

If you want to understand what is going on in their heads, here it is. I'm not saying it's right, but this is what I believe they are thinking.

They are unhappy about certain things the US is doing in the world, such as supporting the Saudi Arabian government, which is a monarchy of super-rich oil sheiks who oppress their citizens.

The terrorists think they can get the US to change that policy. They believe that if they make life scary enough or difficult enough for ordinary US citizens, then eventually we will get fed up and force our government to schange what it's doing. Currently our relationship with Saudi is a profitable one for the US but the terrorists think they can make the relationship harder and harder to maintain by souring public opinion.

It's just like the IRA did in Ireland. England was repressing the Irish, basically treating them like a colony. So the IRA bombed the hell out of them in the hopes that the English public would finally say "who cares about Ireland, leave them alone, we don't want them anyway, we're sick of our kids dying up there."

Al Quaeda is pretty misguided, but look at what happened in Spain. There was a massive subway bombing right before an election, and the result of the election swung the other way as a result. That is one example where terrorists think they won. They inflicted harm which angered enough ordinary citizens to the point where they threw out their government.

Perhaps Al Quaeda thinks that if they kill enough Americans, the rest of us will start wondering why we care so much about Israel, and perhaps elect a president who will stop giving them billions in armaments for free.

In any case, the short answer is that terrorists think they can make ordinary people put pressure on their own government to change.

Answer 2

My guess, Religion. I have yet to hear about any significant useful non violent movement in Arab Muslim history. It seems apparent that many Arab countries although rich in oil, still have third world economies with high unemployment, high poverty rates, and concentration of wealth in the elite and, repressive governments. This is the breeding ground for social and civil disorder. Without the means to change things at the ballot box how can these people manifest their discontent and to what aim?

This scenario can be seen through out history and almost no country in history can claim not to have had some sort of revolution with similar root causes. The three in this century that comes to mind for me are the civil rights movement in the USA in the 60's lead by Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi in India overthrowing British Colonial rule and, women's suffrage movement at the turn of the century. All this movements were non violent and all this movements succeeded. So why with this track record of success is a similar non violent movement in the Middle East attempted in a place like Palestine?

And why it that the discontent of so many Muslims manifests itself into hate and blame towards Israel and the West instead of internal movements or efforts to better their own conditions in their own day to day lives? And why do they choice suicidal violence to achieve their goals and where do they find justification in targeting innocent civilians?

You can argue that most of the existing governments in the Arab world use the West and Israel as scapegoats to explain their own failures to help maintain power. But that does not explain the unimaginable hatred and violence that the terrorist choice.

There have been other examples of terrorism movements in all parts of the world by many deferent ethnic groups both secular and religious but they rarely used suicide attacks and they did not have the support of a whole culture. In England's own country recent polls of the Muslim population there show that a significant portion of that community support suicide attacks especially on Israel.

So the terrorist religion seem to be the only thing that make them unique from other people through out history faced with similar circumstances and it seems to be the reason they choice and justify their actions, to kill themselves and as many innocent civilians as possible.

Answer 3

That is why we call it terrorism. Their agenda is to create an atmosphere of fear and capitulate governments. It goes on all over the world. It is only happening in America now. It has been going on in many parts of the world for a long time.

Al-queda is just one of those groups. There is a lot of anger in the Middle East especially in Muslim Nations against the U.S. for our support of Israel plus we had a history of installing puppet governments or supporting rulers who were not popular among the masses.

Answer 4

When an intollerant, racist, hateful group of people, who, (thankfully) don't have the military strength to fight an army, they resort to attacking any human who represents us, or our culture. Some say its because we support Israel, but if thats the case, what about the recent bombings in India, or those in Bali, or Spain etc. etc. This is why the only way to deal with radical Islam is by force, and don't confuse the innocent casualties caused by the US, or Israel with those intentionally targeted by these barbarians. What did 6 million Jews ever do to Hitler?

Answer 5

No one deserves a cruel death or even threat of it. Because of history, geography, money and sadly, religion...there is a lot blind hatred in the world that is often passed on from one generation to another..

We need to break the cycle. We need to be kind to one another, try to understand others' views and be the best we can every day.

Answer 6

Thats a very good question, I've often wondered the same. I would have to think the killing of innocents would be a more effective way of getting a governmental agency's attention (?).

Answer 7

This is a great question.

We have a lot of freedoms here that they do not. They are taught to hate by their leaders, and we are taught to fight for what we believe in. I think the reason for their hatred is due to lack of knowledge of the American people and our values. I also dont think they like the way America tries to help other countries, I dont think they support any other free (or slightly free) countries the way we do. And the final reason I think they hate us, is because of our strength, and support from other countries.

Answer 8

You seem to be a good person as most of us Americans, but the shameful acts of our unwise president, and letting our Representatives in the government be bought by the Zionist lobby (AIPAC) reflects on us and make us look and act as a fascist, baby killers, ....

We have to rid ourselves of the outside lobbyist and interest to show the world who we really are, please search the truth and help others understand, so our country could live in peace.

Answer 9

That is exactly what we say everyday about killing the innocent in Lebanon, it is the same feeling, both done by terrorists.

Answer 10

None of us have done anything to deserve this. Which is, of course, what makes Muslim extremism so contemptible.