adversity1 wrote:PROMETHEUS wrote:....
Not at all, don't you understand that 9/11 happened BECAUSE of American-commited atrocities in the Middle East ?
That's only if you are accepting bin Laden and Al Queda at their word. It's like listening to Obama pine about democracy in the middle East while letting the Bahrainis get steamrolled by the Saudi army. You're taking the narrative at face value, when what you have to do is dig underneath.
What matters in distinguishing motivation is:
1. Who are they?
2. What is the goal of their organization?
3. What are their goals as individuals?
Look at who carried out the operation: 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. The other 4? An Egyptian, two UAE and a Lebanese guy. That's an amazing line-up of people from nations that have never suffered any real hardship from the US presence in the region. Atta, the Egyptian, is the only one who may have a real claim due to US support for the Mubarak dictatorship. So in terms of who they are, they are certainly not victims of the atrocities in question. If these were salt of the earth Iraqis and Palestinians it would be a different story.
These men were committed ideologues, who identified with the goals of the organization they were a part of: Al-Queda, who interpret the world in a very narrow classical Islamic sense: crusaders and mujahideen. An organization that is informed by reactionary anti-imperialism, and who by and large are Wahabbists. In general in the period up to 9/11 and afterwards, AQ cites the Iraqi sanctions and US bases in Saudi Arabia as specific grievances and justifications for attacks on the US. Obviously the al-Aqsa intifida was also a motivation, although 9/11 had been planned for years before that broke out. The only one of these three motivations that has anything to do with the hijackers in question, and the majority of AQ at the time, is the presence of US forces on Saudi soil, which is essentially an ideological opposition, because the US presence did not have any direct effect on the hijackers. So even the stated grievances of the organization had nothing to do with them as individuals.
Psychologically you have to conclude therefore a twisted mix of solidarity with their peers in other countries, and a profound desire to cause murderous mayhem to people they have never met in the name of religion and the injured pride of the Ummah. None of this makes a 9/11 style attack inevitable. None of the Vietnamese diaspora ever did anything similar despite enduring far worse from the American army, same with the Japanese, Koreans, Guatemalans, Columbians etc (each with their own level of suffering).
The aim of Bin Laden is not to kill people, that is a means, and the end is complex, well informed and well devised. He wanted to trigger wars and conflicts that would cost America trillions of dollars, while spending minimum resources (guerilla style). He wanted to suffocate and undermine the superpower, and at the same time show the world his views and make American people realize what their government is doing. According to him and analysts, it has had incredible success. See this article which is an instance :
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... rs/238517/
Of course OBL and Al Queda are very intelligent, especially KSM whose operations were generally quite sophisticated. They have had a sort of success in that the Afghanistan jihad is alive and kicking.
On the other hand, I think it's unarguable that both sides have taken a heavy toll on one another. The Taliban is still a state within a state and is stronger than years back, but Al Queda as an organization has been thoroughly hunted. Funds cut off, inability to set off any spectacular attacks, leader(s) assassinated. No significant presence of any group with similar views in any social movement since the early 2000s really. AQ mostly driven out of Iraq by the Awakening councils and the US after years of mayhem, their members arrested even in Islamist hotspots like Gaza and the Lebanese Palestinian refugee camps. Some hardline Islamists have made gains in other countries, certainly Hamas and Hezbollah are two good examples, but they hardly owe any of it to Al-Queda and in fact go to great lengths to distance themselves from the group.
It's 2011 and we've had revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt without major fundamentalist presence, the same is happening in Syria now. By no means could the banner of Al-Queda nor any similar organization be raised at any of these rallies for human rights and democracy. They are hunted by all factions in Iraq, and have no major presence in the Yemen democracy movement exploding now, despite the country being one of their roundabouts.
It's fine prose, and the level of detail at which he understood the western political world is quite adept. There really isn't much about strategy in here, and if Osama did actually intend for the wide scope of the US war, I did not find anything in here that proves it. I would also note is that Al Queda, particularly bin Laden, has always been capable of changing the delivery of his message. Try to find a pinch of the "anti-capitalism", global warming criticisms etc. that are in this message, compared to those of the late 90s. AQ recognizes that it has to change with the times, as you can see in some of their latest messages trying to associate their leaders with the Arab Spring.
By the way, telling quote from the man himself (Skykid, don't look!):
Yet in spite of that, you permitted Bush to complete his first term, and stranger still, chose him for a second term, which gave him a clear mandate from you - with your full knowledge and consent- to continue to murder our people in Iraq and Afghanistan."
"Then you claim to be innocent! This innocence of yours is like my innocence of the blood of your sons on the 11th - were I to claim such a thing.
Prometheus you had expressed doubt earlier about whether bin Laden claimed responsibility for 9/11, here it is. Also some video of bin Laden together with the hijackers in Kandahar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... ibau9Vqgeo
Must-read from independent source, and here's an excerpt : "We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic." :
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/no ... ion_to_os/
This article is the reaction to bin laden death by an American intellectual specialized in US Politics analysis.
Yes, that's Chomsky, incidentally someone who has stood up against the bullying of the conspiracy crowd quite stubbornly.
He seems to be getting spicier in his old age:
There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.
Zing!
