Why does Al Qaeda hate us?

[romelus]

2 fundamental causes i think

1. in the last century, western oil companies repeatedly lowered oil prices while jacking up production in the middle east. this prompted newly found arab nationalism to react very negatively. one result was the formation of OPEC. other conflicts of lingering colonialism and nationalism included the suez canal incident, but oil was always THE issue.

bin laden believes $200/barrel is a fair price for oil. of course the western countries will have none of that

2. in arab eyes. christian countries are propping up israel, while being indifferent to palestinian needs. the sentiment probably has roots back in the crusade days, but the repeated wars between israel and surrounding arab states are fresh reminders.

i don't think 1 will ever be solved, as long as we use oil. 2 is dependent on US/israeli policies and the patience of various palestinian groups. unfortunately bush hasn't done much about the underlying cause for years. sharon at least is trying

 

[BasketCase]

#1 will never be solved. Raise the price of oil to $200 a barrel, and people who want it will fight HARDER to get it.

If oil becomes obsolete and we move on to say, fission power, then it will be uranium on the stock market instead of oil. Same problem, different substance.

Other possible problem with this, however: if oil becomes obsolete, and a major source of income for Middle Eastern nations suddenly collapses.....

 

[Communisto]

So who then was responsible for the Khobar Towers bombing? Who was responsible for the 1998 embassy bombings? Who was responsible for September 11? Who was responsible for Bali bombings? Who was responsible for the London Underground bombings?

Al Qaeda isnt an organization. It's a movement. You can't destroy, fight or define it because it doesnt exist

 

[Norlamand]

I just finished a book by Dore Gold, "Hatred's Kingdom". It is about the Saudi kingdom, Wahabism and its promotion. It gives quite a few first hand quotations and examples of the type of rhetoric that feeds the hate in these loons.

 

[romelus]

I just finished a book by Dore Gold, "Hatred's Kingdom". It is about the Saudi kingdom, Wahabism and its promotion. It gives quite a few first hand quotations and examples of the type of rhetoric that feeds the hate in these loons.

i don't think they are loons. they are sane people like you and me, but they see things from a different perspective. besides, as twisted as some of these rhetorics may be, there are underlying facts that feed into them. i doubt terrorist training goes something like this

"we must hate them, because they have freedom!"

"the infidels! freedom! how dare they!"

 

[Communisto]

i don't think they are loons. they are sane people like you and me, but they see things from a different perspective. besides, as twisted as some of these rhetorics may be, there are underlying facts that feed into them. i doubt terrorist training goes something like this

"we must hate them, because they have freedom!"

"the infidels! freedom! how dare they!"

I agree, there are people in the west who are no less extreme than those in the east.

 

[Sims2789]

So who then was responsible for the Khobar Towers bombing? Who was responsible for the 1998 embassy bombings? Who was responsible for September 11? Who was responsible for Bali bombings? Who was responsible for the London Underground bombings?

They commited them. In order to stop them, the US should fight them intelligently instead of using the fact that they did these things as justification to fight a stupid, stubborn war against them. As opposed to simply blowing everyone up because they wronged us, America should see if we can change our policies to make it so that the terrorists don't have a reason to fight. Of course, if America just sits around and says, "But they attacked us so we should get revenge!!" then the US will lose the fight. America needs to be Machiavellian, not stubborn; the US needs to do what's best for defeating the terrorists as opposed to simply bombing everyone because they attacked us. This is, of course, under the assumption that the government is actually trying to defeat the terrorists, as opposed to trying to gain money for themselves and their supporters.

 

[BasketCase]

People who want war will find reasons, no matter how many of them you take away.

-- Surak of Vulcan​

 

[Sickman]

People who want war will find reasons, no matter how many of them you take away.

-- Surak of Vulcan​

Is that about Fundamentalists terrorists or about western world?

Everybody can come with excuses to fight but not with very good reasons.
One of the fronts in war on terror is that people should be teached some sense that mindless bombing of whatever doesn't resolve the conflict into any direction it just fuels it further.

 

[Morfos]

Why does Al Qaeda hate us?

I find that this is never really explored in depth at least in the US news media. How did a multimillionaire Saudi businessman become a cave dwelling leader of a group employing terrorist tactics against Western governments? What is the genesis of this thinking? What are their specific grievances? Some possibilities that I have heard:

1.They hate freedom (silly phrasing probably somewhat true)

2. U.S. air bases in Saudi Arabia (seems like a relatively minor complaint and I think we're removing them)

3. Support for corrupt Arab dictators (well let's see we don't currently support dictators/kings in Syria,Lybia, Iran. Iraq Yemen, Sudan but do in Saudi Arabia (small gulf states?), Egypt, Jordan?-- seems like a decidedly mixed bag)

4. Support for Israel (I suppose but the primary groups fighting Israel have not attacked outside Western powers why does Al Queda pickup this tactic).

5. Cultural/economic invasion on Arab culture (I suppose but the French complain about this too)

6. A crusade for religious conversion outside middle east (I thought Islam is a religion of peace)

7. Crusade for religious purity within the middle east (Why not attack Syria?)

8. Ego, pride, jealously (sounds possible for the leaders but how do they get the recruits?)

Its all of the above; there is no simple answer to why they hate us. But those eight reasons are the reasons.

 

[amadeus]

America should see if we can change our policies to make it so that the terrorists don't have a reason to fight.

SURRENDER.

 

[Squonk]

America is hatred through Muslim world for the same and other reasons that Al-Qaida itself hates it, and by attacking it, Al-Qaida gets popularity. Also, as USA can strike back, it can be hoped that further polarisation of Muslims and the rest. An attack in the name of a religion will cause treating this religion with suspicion and lack of symptathy, which will cause cconsolidation and gathering of Muslims around their faith.

 

[MamboJoel]

I feel like the head post itself is a big misunderstanding of the situation, the historical causes leading to the current situaton (XXIth invasions, early XXth battle for influence, XVIIIth and XIX colonilism in the middle east, Crusades) the recent facts leading to this situation. From my point of view the options given in the head post are terribly childish : they mix "they hate freedom" (The big lightemotive besides WMD, Weapons of Mass Destructions if some have allready forgotten) with French culture (LOL +++), "Crusade for religious purity within the middle east (Why not attack Syria?)" [Syria !!!], "Ego, pride, jealously (sounds possible for the leaders but how do they get the recruits?)".
Take a break, really visit does countries (except the ones that are occupied by our forces, they seem not to be secured yet .

 

[Sims2789]

SURRENDER.

I am not surrendering; I am suggesting a better means to achieve the ends of winning the war (assuming that there is one). This is the exact sort of narrow-minded stubborness that I am talking about. By causing America to react before it thinks, that is, bomb the crap out of places and use brute force "because they attacked us," that will cause the US to lose the war.

 

[cgannon64]

No, you are talking about surrendering control of American foreign policy to terrorists: They should dictate how we act.

 

[bigfatron]

Why does Al Quaida hate us is answered by the links about their intention to create a worldwide theocracy - they hate us (or more accurately, they fight us) because we are in the way of what they want to achieve, which they believe is the most important thing in the world.

Basically they seek to convert at the point of a sword, a philosophy followed by the church for many hundreds of years and only dropped by the West after the Enlightenment

I would prefer to ask a slightly different question:
'Why do so many muslims give tacit or active support to the terror groups?'

this is the question that is answered by the issues of unquestioning support for Israel, the abandonment of Muslim Bosnia, American dominance of the Middle East, support for Arab dictators, etc, etc.

To address the threat of Al Quaida effectively, it is necessary to reduce the base of support for the terrorists (addressing the second set of issues) whilst never giving an inch to the bombers (which means giving nothing toward their goal).

Fortunately no-one sane in the West is likely to give much ground toward a global theocracy, so it only remains to open our eyes and start to address the flaws in our actions that encourage support for our enemies from the general population.

It's how we addressed the IRA issue, and it worked; maybe it is worth a try?

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Well, I think the political situation in the middle east can only explain a small part of the reasons why they hate us. Let´s face it, the US committed atrocities in Vietnam and in Middle America and we don´t see suicide bombers and that fundamental hatred to the US from there.

If it was just to follow the qua´ran to get to heaven why should they bother with the life other people are leading. I think this phenomenon of fundamental hatred has more psychological reasons.
People living in more conservative islamic societies are trained to follow the rules of the qua´ran strictly from childhood on. Doubts are restrained: I have invested a lot of zeal to follow these rules, all would be lost if I change my life now and maybe the qua´ran is right after all. Additionally their societies are collectivist, outside pressure also restrains their doubts.
(You often see people cling to a lost cause because they have already invested in it, I think this mindset can be compared to the mindset of gambling addicted people.)
They deny themselves a lot of freedom to cling to their religion and they see other people living the life they deny themselves. Free people feed their doubts: is my zeal and my denial of freedom worth it? Why are other people not following the rules, do they know there is no heaven, why are they not afraid of burning in hell? Is there a heaven after all? Was my effort futile? I think their hatred originates from this inner conflict - already invested effort versus doubts that the investment was futile.
Finally in attacking and even killing these different people they also attack their doubts. That suicide bombings occur some intrepretation of the qua´ran says suicide is legitimate within the followed ruleset.

This has nothing to do with the Islam, Christianity had the same problems in the past (killing people with other religions, burning witches,...). Religious zeal leads to violence against people not following the rules because of this inner conflict.

 

[romelus]

vietnam won the war, and latin america meddling was restricted to small and separate places like panama and grenada. they were also mainly just political coups.

the middle east has oil (money), which continuely stirs up conflict. and i'm pretty sure that even if palestine was completely secular, there would still be terrorist activities against israel. the political situation was just hopeless

 

[eyrei]

No, you are talking about surrendering control of American foreign policy to terrorists: They should dictate how we act.

God forbid that anyone, anywhere have any impact on American foreign policy. It is, after all, only Americans that are important.

I think you managed to step on one of the reasons inadvertantly.

 

[BasketCase]

Is that about Fundamentalists terrorists or about western world?

Everybody can come with excuses to fight but not with very good reasons.
One of the fronts in war on terror is that people should be teached some sense that mindless bombing of whatever doesn't resolve the conflict into any direction it just fuels it further.

Everybody can come up with reasons that are good reasons--in their view. What is a good reason for one person is almost certain to be seen as ludicrous by somebody else. Sixty million people re-elected Bush in 2004, and 75% of the people on the rest of the planet went and yelled "Hey, United States, what the hell are you guys smoking???"

51% of American voters thought it was a good idea to put Bush back in office. 49% thought it was incomprehensible and stupid.

I think bombing the crap outta Saddam was a great idea. You think it was "mindless". See?

The pattern throughout history has not been one of "fair" punishment for past crimes. Peaceful nations that never harmed anybody else in their lives have been getting invaded and conquered for six thousand years. The U.S. could pull all our troops out of everywhere, leave the rest of the world alone (in fact we were doing exactly that for most of the 19th century and part of the 20th!) and people would still find reasons to hijack our 747's and fly them into skyscrapers.