Comment by throw310822
8 hours ago
The US are also the major enabler of Israel's colonial expansion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. This was clearly expressed by Bin Laden himself as one of the motives behind the 9/11 attacks.
> Were you thinking the US was just minding its own business and some bad guys came and attacked it
As I remember, this was exactly the way the US explained 9/11: "they hate us for our freedom".
Yeah, he also justified it by citing the US's acceptance of homosexuality so maybe it's more complicated than that.
No, he didn't. His "letter to America" starts with the question:
"As for the first question: Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple:
Because you attacked us and continue to attack us."
And proceeds to list all the ways the US are militarily attacking and oppressing Muslims in the Middle East. It's a long list.
Homosexuality is mentioned only once in the letter, in the next section, where he criticises American society and morals in general and calls it to embrace Islam. This is explicitly an exhortation and not part of the reasons for the attacks (so probably intended as a diagnosis of the symptoms of a moral disease and the proposal of a cure - note that I'm not endorsing it, just explaining its function in the letter).
"(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."
This is already an incredibly regressive thing to say as a polite request, but in case you weren't aware the "or else" was that his global terror organization would continue to murder innocent civilians.
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How on earth is Israel, which gave up land for peace twice, guilty of "colonial expansion." I know it's not worth arguing with a Pakistani throwaway account. I will link here a map showing colonial expansion:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/4e/73/fb4e7315c99b22876fd2...
Sure, but I'd hope any commenter here would be smart enough to not believe such a facile explanation.
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You asked "who did the US bomb before 9/11" and you got the answer. Now you're arguing that they shouldn't have reacted even if the US bombed them before (calling it "an excuse")?
As for the peace process with Palestinians, it was always a sham. The US (as it's evident now to many) are entirely unable to apply any sort of pressure on their "ally". What they've done is just buying time for Israel to expand its colonisation under the temporary pretense of some ongoing "peace process".
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>There is always an excuse
"excuse" is a funny way of wording it -- "motivation" or "explanation" might be more appropriate here. is the expectation that the US can and should be able to kill and destroy and the victims just turn the other cheek?
West bank and Gaza were never under full Palestinian control since 1967 both were under brutal occupation or blockade + contant Israeli meddling into internal affairs.
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So are the Palestinians?