>Raymond Ibrahim, as a researcher at the Library of Congress, found a significant difference between Al Qaeda's messages in English directed to a Western audience and al Qaeda's Arab messages and documents directed to an Islamic audience. The Western-directed messages listed grievances as grounds for retaliation employing the "language of 'reciprocity.'" Literature for Islamic audiences contained theological motivations bereft of references to the acts of Western nations.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_a...
> Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, in their book, The Age of Sacred Terror, argue that the 9/11 terrorist attacks are purely religious. They are seen as "a sacrament ... intended to restore to the universe a moral order that had been corrupted by the enemies of Islam." It is neither political nor strategic but an "act of redemption" meant to "humiliate and slaughter those who defied the hegemony of God."
> Robert Pape identified 315 incidents, all but 14 of which they classified as part of 18 different campaigns. These 18 shared two elements and all but one shared a third:[61] 1) A foreign occupation; 2) by a democracy; 3) of a different religion. Mia Bloom interviewed relatives and acquaintances of suicide terrorists. Her conclusions largely support Pape's, suggesting that it is much more difficult to get people to volunteer for a suicide mission without foreign occupation.[62]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_a...
The irony being "terrorists" are just viewed as "martyrs" and "freedom fighters" on the other side of the coin, and every bomb dropped fighting them resulting in civilian deaths creates new terrorists/freedom fighters, who then go on to attack again killing more civilians, creating more radicals on the other side, who then bomb killing even more civilians. It's a cycle that never ends.
I am sure some of them viewed themselves as freedom fighters, and that us dropping bombs which inflict collateral damage generates the kind of people who are willing to fight the US. That doesn't make them heroes or martyrs.
Also read more carefully they never said the "terrorists" were heroes they explained the point of view of the "terrorists"
Is this really what political analysis has stooped to on HN in 2023? A total abdication of any attempt at nuance, or framing, or examining underlying intentions.
Such a shame.
That the evidence used to justify the invasion of Iraq was fabricated was blatantly obvious at the time and foreign heads of state's statements on it were based more on diplomacy than credibility. The invasion of Afghanistan was easier to justify due to the presence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan at the time and the cooperation of the Taliban with Al Qaeda but it was widely understood as being motivated by retaliation against Islamism more broadly rather than an attempt to take out the group that orchestrated the attacks. Neither invasion was justified by international law, not that this matters given that the US is not party to the International Criminal Court and has previously pledged to take military action against anyone attempting to extradite US citizens to the Hague.
9/11 was a horrible loss of civilian life and the collapse of the towers itself was a horrific mass death event even without taking any of the planes into account. But the US's invasions and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq had a civilian death count far exceeding 9/11 and the US deliberately arrested "enemy combatants" and held and tortured them with no legal recourse, often for years without trial. Not to mention the state of the entire region during and after the occupation leading to the rise of ISIS and the return of the Taliban to power after the toothless puppet regime in Afghanistan collapsed.
That Al Qaeda was the Bad Guy doesn't make the US the Good Guy. At best the US is the Less Bad Guy. Preferable but not to be celebrated.
A lot of people born after 9/11 also have no recollection of the levels of racism and jingoism that followed the event: Muslims being ostracized and openly attacked, brown people in general being mistreated on suspicion of being Muslim, the lengths American corporations went to to spite the French for voicing concern when the US announced its intend to enter war in the Middle East.
And a lot of people think they are seeing exactly the same play out in Israel and Gaza since the Oct 7th attacks, except Israel didn't even take time to mourn the victims (or track the hostages) before engaging in a month-long retaliatory bombing campaign with a mind-boggling death toll.
It seemed obvious to me at the time when I watched a clip of the discussion in the House of Commons, but in retrospect what I thought was a weakness of the government position shouldn't have been seen that way, as (I learned from Johnson violating it) the standard for all statements in the House to be true.
Otherwise, I think I agree with what you say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosio...
https://www.emro.who.int/images/stories/palestine/WHO_oPt_Si...
After Israel had an (apparently justified) prolonged media war to combat the claims that it bombed that particular hospital, the IDF then deliberately bombed several other hospitals and even went to the lengths of publishing a 3D animation of an alleged underground complex to justify their intent to bomb the largest hospital which at that time was known to provide shelter to hundreds of civilians. Israel then also posted pictures of piping it misidentified as a tunnel entrance in the debris of a part of the hospital that it had bombed.
The problem with the disinformation and lies is that just like killing civilians this is somewhat anticipated coming from Hamas but catches people off guard when Israel does it and especially when Israel does it so blatantly that it's hard to pretend they're not doing it. Heck, there are now multiple incidents of fabricated evidence relying on the audience's inability to understand Arabic or ignorance of heavy accents that have been shared by official Israeli social media channels. This includes the supposed radio communication demonstrating that Islamists accidentally the entire hospital before it became obvious that it was likely not an Israeli attack and the damage was constrained to the parking lot. Heck, Israel's Twitter account even shared an IDF-affiliated account celebrating and justifying the attack on the hospital prior to this.
So, yes, the IDF most likely did not drop the bomb that apparently blew up that hospital's parking lot. But the IDF most definitely did drop bombs on other hospitals and has stated its intent of doing so and has justified doing so, both before and after this particular explosion. And Israel government social media accounts have incorrectly claimed the explosion as an IDF attack as well as shared fabricated evidence to the contrary and general mis- and disinformation.
In this war more than any others so far, everybody lies and no-one can be trusted. And strangely not only can Israel not be trusted when it denies wrongdoing but also when it explicitly claims it. At least the anti-Israel and pro-Hamas propaganda is normally more predictable. Israeli propaganda at this point feels more like an evolution on Russian propaganda which infamously tries to DDoS any attempt at fact checking by making multiple mutually contradictory claims in short succession.
Signing up at 18 years old to go fight in a foreign country after just a couple hundred hours of training, does make you a hero compared to those that sit at home their whole lives and do nothing to help maintain society. If heros that go into the military didn't exist, I'd be speaking German or would have never come into existence because my relatives would be dead.
Signing up for military service can be described as "heroic" or "honourable" at best.
Without saying they do more, to avoid a flame war, teachers and doctors do plenty for society, for example.
Even the girl I'm dating sounds like a terrible teacher but what am I supposed to do about that. Not everyone can be good at their job. There is basically zero process to remove the bottom few % of teachers no matter how bad they are.
She showed me her kindle recently. Proud she had read 37 books on it in 2 years. All fiction. Zero books about children or teaching. Wonders why she loses control of every classroom after about 3 months and suffers til the end of the school year.
You also realize she has had the same amount of “being taught to” right?
Your disdain for your GF is pretty sad too.
Hey, even the worlds worst teacher has a bf or a husband. Is he supposed to think she's amazing just because he enjoys spending time with her doing other things?
I'm just saying that there is a decent amount of teachers that are doing a disservice to kids by not getting out of the way and letting the good teachers have a shot. But hey, she wants a Tesla and there's a union, so Johny must suffer.
I'm just saying there is a decent amount of soldiers who aren't providing more of a value to society than those who chose to go into teaching and medicine (you keep conveniently leaving medicine out. Curious.) Especially when you consider what their presence in iraq cost society.
But hey, they got to shoot guns! Pew pew!
Unfortunately, the decision actually made the world less safe, and also consumed money that could have been used for education or healthcare. Not sure how complaining about teachers and doctors helps make society better, either.
Meanwhile, teaching and medicine still are making the world a better place.
So, if you just want to shoot guns, do it at home or a range or something. If you want to kill people, seek help. Neither make you a hero. But volunteering to teach the future or care for people? More likely does.
While a kid that goes and tries in the military is helping in one way or another. The military has better systems to extract value than the school districts.
So, let's get back on topic: some individuals glamorize going to iraq to shoot guns and kill random people so much, that they actually believe such killing urges are helpful. So I feel these individuals are doing a disservice because they aren't good at identifying what is helpful and what isn't.
Meanwhile, a kid that goes into teaching or medicine (you keep ignoring medicine. Curious.) is helping in one way or another. You're right that these iraq war volunteers extract value from society (and keep it for themselves). Teaching and medicine, on the other hand, have better systems to give that value back to society.
However, you are right that without the brave soldiers of the USSR you might be speaking German. Or not, it’s pointless conjecture.
If they don't die due to bombs being dropped, they are going to die due to stray bullets.
The only way to prevent that is not to go to war in the first place. However, sometime war is your only choice.
What else can you use to stop terrorism? You can prevent it from happening in the first place. 9/11 and the Hamas terror attacks could of been prevented. Future terror attacks can be prevented too. War is reactionary and somehow hasn't stopped terrorism despite its blunt usage. And terrorism hasn't stopped bombs from falling yet either.
Terrorism as far as we can see is basically incredibly ineffective for inspiring any sort of changes, and serves to enrage your enemy, much like indiscriminate mass bombing often strengthen the resolve of those who are on the receiving end of it.
If only a few of those hanging chads in Florida had hung differently, or if Gore had further pressed the issue...
I think that deserves a qualification: terrorism can be very effective against an occupying force and when it has the backing of the local population. But terrorism in its 20th century sense of "propaganda of the deed" has indeed shown very ineffective time and again.
I recall an anarchist revolutionary in the early 20th century assassinating a factory owner or somesuch thinking that his act of violence would spur the combative union workers into revolutionary action only to find out that they would turn on him instead. On the other hand there are plenty of documented successes at guerilla warfare - of course always contingent on wide support from the local civilians they were trying to liberate. Likewise, the bombing campaigns in WW2 did little to break the spirit of the civilian population and at worst only radicalized them.
I mean you are. That's literally true, as true as the story on the 4chan thread. I'm calling you out.
This is a good quote. However you can say this about any critic, journalist, voter, or billionaire. We should be worried about the ones that don't like it 24/7/365, and have their entire life's meaning centered around not liking the US.
The US is actively terrorizing their homelands.
Some people consider Anders Breivik, Timothy McVeigh, Brendan Tarrant, etc. "freedom fighters".
Some of these "freedom fighters" literally strap bombs to small children and send them to troops or civilian targets to explode. e.g. Boko Haram, but Hamas has also done this (although they stopped quite a few years ago).
etc. etc.
I feel conferable in saying that this is evil no matter the context, and that we need to fight this. Full stop, end of story.
There is lot of variety here.
In the end I feel that "terrorist" is a meaningless classifier, and you need to look at the full context.
I think it's simplistic to declare our enemies "evil" because they're denied access (fortunately) to the kinds of expensive weapons systems that our own propaganda views with approval.
Or that strapping a bomb to a random kidnapped 9-year old girl is not evil?
It is Evil. Full stop. No discussion.
Whether someone else is also evil or not doesn't even come in to play.
Intentionally trying to blow up non-combatants is bad - and there is no way to make it good. Its one thing if non-combatants are collateral damage (war is dirty), its another thing entirely if ones intention is to intentionally kill civilians.
And what is a "civilian" anyway? Is someone who works in a gun factory a civilian or are they a legitimate target? What about a jeep factory? Or a factory which produces just some parts? What about the factory that provides steel? What about the lorry driver delivering the steel? Is someone who actively works to spread disinformation to justify something like the Russian invasion a civilian? Does it matter if they genuinely believe their own disinformation or if it's proven they know it's false?
In principle I agree with you as such and I think very few people disagree, but it's all pretty murky because most modern wars consist of much more than just soldiers going at each other. You need to look at the specifics of the situation in every single case.
One of my gripes about WWII in the Pacific Theatre, is some folks get very bothered by use of nuclear weapons, while ignoring or downplaying the use of incendiaries, which often killed far more people.
in this case the other side of the coin is Salafists, who can rightfully go fuck themselves
"It's your fault I hit you, because you made me mad."
> If I recall correctly, the terrorists attacked the US because they "don't like freedom". That was the narrative on TV nonstop
A significant part of that particular brand of terrorism is indeed hostile to cultures that don’t share their religious and cultural beliefs. We can’t reduce all of their motivations to singular slogans that fit neatly into TV commercials, but it is actually true that they are aligned against a secular international order with associated freedom of religion, among many other freedoms.
If you were trying to make a cheeky point about how a private entity choosing to take down Osama Bin Laden’s letter is somehow infringing on our freedoms, that’s ironic because they are a private business that is free to choose what they do and do not publish. Ironically, freedom of the press is something very much absent in regimes where these terrorists operate.
> The irony being "terrorists" are just viewed as "martyrs" and "freedom fighters" on the other side of the coin
Not that simple. You think Palestinians love being beholden to the terrorist leadership that refuses to allow elections, is known for stealing their humanitarian aid to enrich themselves on the order of billions of dollars, and operates safely from a foreign country?
Yes—there was at that time, and there remains to this day, a strong criticism of the US in that part of the world that it is a “decadent” society—which is really another way of saying that there are many freedoms that people avail themselves of that they disagree with.
According to large segments of the political class in the US, yes they do love it. And in fact they are legitimate targets of the Israeli military because of it.
The funny part is how close, and yet how far, this is to/from the truth. You know that old quip about freedom versus security? The visceral motivation for a bunch of well-educated and well-paid reactionaries (which is who they were — the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates have university degrees and grew up in nice houses) was that Americans were safe and their countrymen were not. They hated us for our security; they didn't care about freedom.
Freedom doesn't include being gay, a woman with actual rights, a minority that's not a muslim and so on.
Moreover, their historical narrative is twisted to fit their objective - the creation of a wold-wide califate.
So yes, when freedom is based and defined by this narrative, you could call them freedom fighters.
The problem with "freedom fighters" is that they can be both: they can be fighting for freedom while also fighting for the right to subjugate others. The latter is often accepted if the desire for the former is strong enough. Dropping bombs on people lowers the threshold for this radicalization substantially.
And if you want to be particularly uncharitable you could argue that as long as the US is not actively pivoting to isolationism (and especially so during the "world police" era until the late '00s) the US's objective was to maintain a world order with itself at the top of the hierarchy. "Liberating" other countries was historically more about making their economies accessible to US interests (and pre-collapse also shutting out the Soviet Union).
I'd take US corporate privatization over the caliphate any day but that doesn't mean the former represents freedom in a way I agree with, just that it is a closer match or more compatible.
It means basically, that there's very little wiggle room, you can't really negotiate with someone who believes he/she acts on orders from a divine entity.
That's why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains unsolved for so many years ...
There is a small but influential undercurrent among Israeli Zionists who believe in the creation of Greater Israel, ethnically cleansing not only all of the current borders of Israel (including Gaza and the West Bank) but also historical Transjordan and territories all the way to the Nile (i.e. all of Jordan as well as parts of Syria, Saudia Arabia and Egypt): https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-extreme-ambitions...
Eliminationist rhetoric has repeatedly made its way into statements by government politicians and even programming by the Israeli national broadcaster (Kan) as in the recently broadcasted and immediately de-archived "friendship song" video: https://www.msn.com/en-my/news/national/music-video-of-israe...
The early Zionist project in Palestine was explicitly described as colonialist by key members and the expulsion of the non-Jewish Palestinian population as an explicit aspect of it. The support of Western governments including the UK pre-1945 was based more on antisemitism than genuine goodwill, ranging from the idea that having "all the Jews in one place" made them easier to handle (or eliminate - which was why the Nazi government tolerated Zionist transfers of German Jews to Palestine until WW2 shut down all emigration) to the British idea during WW2 that "giving them what they want" would give you an "in" with "the international bankers" (basically the reverse side of the Jewish conspiracy theories): https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2017-10-26/ty-article/the-ba...
It's also impossible to mention the Israel-Palestine conflict itself without mentioning how Israel effectively helped bolster (Islamist) Hamas in order to combat the (secular, socialist-leaning) Fatah: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30...
... or how current PM Netanyahu supported the calls for the murder of his more moderate predecessor Rabin that preceded his assassination: https://www.timesofisrael.com/labor-chief-michaeli-rabin-was...
Heck, if you go back to the time Hamas was actually elected in Gaza (and many Gazans alive today weren't alive at the time, let alone old enough to participate in the election), their messaging was a lot more ideologically (and religously) moderate and closer to that of Fatah, even if they already were Islamists and eliminationist antisemites internally. Note that Palestinians in Gaza haven't had another election since and public opinion among Gazans seems to be very much divided.
In effect, the Zionists through the creation of Israel and the domestic and military conflicts that sprang from it created a Palestinian diaspora (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return) which is being mistreated in the countries it has sought refuge in. At the same time, Israel's existence in explicit opposition to its neighbors' cultures and ethnicities while in close alliance with Western powers and the US in particular is seen as a geopolitical threat by its neighbors and especially those countries that are aligned opposite to the US - this more than any religious motivations seems the main motivation behind Iran's support of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Islamism definitely plays a part in this and Islamists do lend themselves more towards carrying out the terrorist attacks and missile strikes against Israel as none of its neighbors could risk an all-out war even without direct involvement of the US military. But as always in geopolitics it runs much deeper than one group's religious dogma.
And I haven't even mentioned how certain Evangelical Christians shaped US politics on Israel because the reestablishment of Israel as a "Jewish state" (and the extermination of those same Jews) is an integral part of their mythology of the "end times" (and salvation). There are very unhealthy beliefs about Israel/Palestine present in all three Abrahamic religions, to say the least.
The letter very clearly states that they don't like freedom! It very specifically calls out permissiveness of sex, gays, banking (as every western nation sees it, contra Islamic banking), gambling, alcohol, and separation of church and state as evils:
> (a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.
> (b) It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind:
> (i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.
> (iv) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.
Mad we didn't behead old Bill:
> Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?
I wouldn't say that the speech is "Ok" as much as it is simply tolerated in American democracy. Free speech is core American value, so you hear from the fringes. If they actually follow through and act (occasionally happens and makes national news), it is no longer be tolerated.
This isn’t a defense of UBL, I’m just pointing out that so much of this conversation is a matter of your ideology. If you think the only harm of the religious right in this country is simply a matter of tolerating their speech, then count yourself lucky to not be among or close to their victims.
If I recall correctly, the terrorists attacked the US because they "don't like freedom". That was the narrative on TV nonstop and any wavering from full support of the wars or "supporting the troops" was tantamount to supporting terrorists.
The irony being "terrorists" are just viewed as "martyrs" and "freedom fighters" on the other side of the coin, and every bomb dropped fighting them resulting in civilian deaths creates new terrorists/freedom fighters, who then go on to attack again killing more civilians, creating more radicals on the other side, who then bomb killing even more civilians. It's a cycle that never ends.