Let’s see, al-Qaeda attacked us because we decadent westerners were in the “holy land” of Saudi Arabia. We were there by invitation of the King of Saudi Arabia because Saddam invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia. Had we not gone in, our access to oil would have been cut off by the way. So tell me again, how Islamists are not attacking us because we are decadent Westerners?
With atheists, I often encounter the argument that 9/11 was the natural outcome of religion. With others I often encounter the argument that 9/11 was the outcome of a specific religion. I am opposed to both.
Now I can understand why people are inclined to believe that terrorist hate our decadence. On a certain level it’s logical to assume that they attacked us because of an inherent property of Radical Islam and Jihad was indeed the means that were used to attack us.
However I think there’s a bit more to this. Bin Laden was in no way justified, but if you look at his own statements it was clearly US foreign policy which instigated the attacks. It wasn’t simply because we were in Saudi Arabia. We’ve had ongoing military action in the region for years.
Also Bin Laden wasn’t piloting any plane and there’s evidence that the hijackers were suicidal. I don’t think we should exclusively blame religions zealotry. To look at what caused 9/11 we ought to look at the motives of the planners like Bin Laden.
Bin Laden stated that
As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women." He’s referring to the Siege of Beirut, which we weren’t directly involved with and and actually condemned, though in Bin Laden’s eyes the US held responsibility.
Imagine that foreigners whom you’ve never met and done anything against were to commit actions that killed thousands of your fellow citizens. That’s how the terrorists perceive us and I think that’s what they were trying to give us a taste of with 9/11. Are they justified in attacking us? Absolutely not, but we ought to show a bit more prudence with our foreign military presense.
Foreign occupation can breed terrorism. The West’s occupation of the Middle East can trace itself back to World War I, a war triggered by an incident having to do with suicidal terrorists. Did the Black Hand assassinate Franz Ferdinand because they hated Austria and everything they stood for? Well, specifically they hated its military rule over the region. The man who fired the shot, Gavrilo Princip, was an atheist, but he was on a suicide mission, he tried to kill himself with cyanide after the shooting. I’m going to assume he was suicidal, and I vaguely remember finding evidence for that. What drove young men to do this? Bad foreign policy.
If our military bases in Europe were perceived to be causing the deaths of thousands, then it’s not beyond the realm of reason to expect terrorists to rise up against us there as well.
Now then is it possible that Radical Islam in itself is enough to cause a terrorist attack. Yes, and we ought to maintain a well alert, strong defense, but were gonna have an even bigger problem if we continue with our current foreign policy.
