Do you think that the presence of the American military in the middle east prior to 9/11...?

Question

motivated Al Qaeda in any way to attack the U.S.?

Answer 1

It was among their primary complaints. So yes.

Unfortunately this administration doesn't want to really "frame" terrorism as anything that might approach rationality. As a result, the President feels that it is important that no official speak on the record regarding the specific demands of Al Quaeda, as such the administration has pretty consistently failed in its responsibility to inform the citizenry of the specifics of what motivates our enemy.

Beyond "they're evil", well, that's nice, but we're not in Sunday school anymore and we should have received a little more information than that, we haven't but we should have.

It used to be "they hate our freedoms" but that too became taboo after it was realized this was in some complex philosophical way incompatible with "they are evil".

The demands of Al Qaeda are straightforward enough
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- End massive military for support of Israel
- Establishment of an Arab [presumably Palestinian state]
- Withdraw of western forces from the "ummah" (especially Saudi Arabia proper)
- Restoration of Muslim control of energy resources
- Replacement of US protected regimes that do not govern according to Islam within the "ummah"
- End support against any/all repression of Muslims by Russian, Chinese, Indian and other governments
- Conversion to Islam of a super majority of US citizens

There are many minor demands on top of these but this is their primary list of grievances.

Answer 2

curiously the forces of the west have secured peace and stability interior the some distance or close to east. Why they thought that this grow to be the ideal time to do it quite is a distinctive remember all at the same time. the indisputable fact that there is no lasting peace interior the east isn't significant curiously. the genuine reason is the Bilderberg group of which many western leaders alongside with bush, blair and clinton are contributors. This communities quest for a clean worldwide order, One worldwide government and worldwide autonomy had to stability the capacity between the midsection eastern oil production and that of the mexican or lesser oil producing worldwide places. Oil is the biggest commodity this planet has and any instability between competing manufacturers could have financially shifted the seat of worldwide capacity. the present scenario with the oil leak in bp`s field and the sharpening off of the armed occupation of the midsection and close to east is in simple terms the top of the iceberg. BP are ploughing thousands and thousands into their south american operation. The declaration of possible further exploration interior the north sea is further information of the capacity oil holds.

Answer 3

No, the reasonable keeping of armed forces in a region of conflict is not a motivation for acts like that. Mental illness is a motivation, evil is a motivation, envy is a motivation.....American forces in the Middle East is a RATIONALIZATION

Answer 4

As was stated by Bin Laden in one of his tapes, the US military base in Saudi Arabia was one of the issues that provoked the 911 attacks.

Answer 5

I think that is one of their major problems with us.
At least it used to be. I'll bet that even if we were to cave and pull out, they would find some other reason to despise us.

But still, yankee troops on their "hallowed" islamic soil has been sticking in their craw since about the time they felt they no longer needed to worry about the Soviet Union.

Answer 6

Yes, I think our presence there was one of the main reasons. I think our support of Israel is of more importance, our treatment of the Palestinians and invasion of Iraq. I don't agree with Bush who said they were jealous of our wealth and it was a reason they hated us. If so, it was a minor reason!

Answer 7

According to Osama Bin Ladin. who ought to know, it was the reason that he attacked the U. S. But you knew that.

Answer 8

Well, US was providing arms to Israel. Like Egypt has today been accused of providing arms to Hamas.

Answer 9

America's continued meddling in the entire middle eastern region for over fifty years is why the terrorists struck your pathetic nation.

Answer 10

No. It was merely an excuse but not a reason.

The critical year was 1979 in so far as the US is concerned.

That year, radical Islamists replaced a strong ally against radical Islam in Iran aided by Carter’s CIA.

http://www.payvand.com/news/06/mar/1090.html

That same year, Saddam Hussein became the government of Iraq with no interference from Carter.

** "Iraq and Iran had engaged in border clashes for many years and had revived the dormant Arvand-Roud (Shatt al Arab) waterway dispute in 1979. Iraq claimed the 200-kilometer channel up to the Iranian shore as its territory, while Iran insisted that the line running down the middle of the waterway negotiated last in 1975, was the official border. The Iraqis, especially the Baath leadership, regarded the 1975 treaty as merely a truce, not a definitive settlement.

The Iraqis also perceived revolutionary Iran's Islamic agenda as threatening to their pan-Arabism. Khomeini, bitter over his expulsion from Iraq in 1977 after fifteen years in An Najaf, vowed to avenge Shia victims of Baathist repression. Baghdad became more confident, however, as it watched the once invincible Imperial Iranian Army disintegrate, as most of its highest ranking officers were executed."

By 1980, the Iran-Iraq war was underway.

In Afghanistan, during the same time frame, Carter's CIA was sewing the seeds of revolution against the Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan hoping to draw the Soviet Union into a conflict they hoped would become the Soviet's "Vietnam".

The first wave of Soviets entered Afghanistan December 25th, 1979.

Carter's National Security Chief unleashed the “Arc of Crisis” against the Soviet Union with no regard to what threat radical Islam posed to the USA; the political strategy blunder of the millennia.

To add insult to injury, the rallying cry for this blunder was “human rights”.

Oh, the irony!

One cannot overlook what happened in Pakistan on Carter's watch in the lead up to 1979.

General Zia-ul-Haq came to power after he overthrew ruling Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a military coup d'état on July 5, 1977 and became the state's third ruler to impose martial law. The coup itself was largely bloodless, but Bhutto was subsequently tried and executed. Zia initially ruled for a year as martial law administrator, and later assumed the post of President of Pakistan in September 1978.





That's three colossal blunders of American foreign policy under democrats.

That set the stage for all that was to come.

In 1979 inside Saudi Arabia a change occured as well, even more insidious than the first three but none-the-less was triggered by them.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saud/interviews/hattlan.html


I will reiterate, US troops on Saudi soil did not provide them a reason, as their reason for attacking the US has existed for as long as Islam has existed.

During the 1780's and 1790's, while the USA could hardly be considered a world power, with little political clout anywhere in the entire world, USA interests as well as our citizens encountered Islamic terrorism from the Barbary Pirates who were sponsored by the Barbary States of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli.

The reasons for this terrorism was as stated by Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams per their correspondence with an Ambassador of the region:

On March 28, 1786 Jefferson and Adams detailed what they saw as the main issue:

“We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the Grounds of their pretensions to make war upon a Nation who had done them no Injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our Friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”


The reasons from 1789 are the reasons of 2001. Our "crimes" in both centuries were we are infidels, nothing more and nothing less.

All the rest are excuses designed to make you think we deserved it, to make you more willing to pay the "tribute" under blackmail to save your life.

In their world, you have three choices: conversion, death or payment for the right to exist as slaves.

Why are we now the "Great Satan" when the rest of the world and the Muslims have been interfering in each other’s affairs for centuries before we, the USA, existed?

Simply, we are the biggest obstacle to overcome; get us out of the way and the world is theirs for the taking.

If we won't fight for ourselves, who will?? And whom will we come to aid?


Some people argue that radical Islam is merely a pawn in a sinister ploy to a "New World Order. I argue that to use such an ideology in such a way is akin to starting a backfire to save your own home only to see a change of wind direction that leads not only to the destruction of your home but those of billions of others. A burned world is worth nothing to no one.

You still have to fight the fire and then find, arrest and prosecute the arsonist!