Bush is fond of telling us that the reason the terrorists have attcked us is because they "hate our freedoms". We have done nothing to incur their wrath other than to exercise the freedoms provided to us in the Constitution. According to reports from intelligence agencies that have been leasked from the most recent NIE report, our presence in Iraq is only increasing the threat of terrorist attacks. In other words, what the terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, have been telling us about the reason for the attacks is true. And it's not because of our "freedoms", as Bush would like us to believe.
Our presence in the Middle East has been a source of annoyance to Islamic extremists for some time. It is a well-known fact that many Islamic fundamentalists resent the presence of infidels in the Middle East, particularly Mecca and other holy sites. Bin Laden had this to say after the anniversary of 9/11 in 2004:
Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.
Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.
If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 - may Allah have mercy on them.
No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.
Bin Laden goes on to refute the charge that Bush has used many times to portray the terrorists as a threat to our liberty:
But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.
He goes on to explain the reason behind the attacks and when the thought first occurred to him, which was during the Reagan administration, which I suspect would be a little difficult to blame on Clinton. Bin Laden said:
So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider.
I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.
The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.
I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.
The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.
In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.
And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
Bin Laden goes on to state that he has been trying to convey this message for some time.
Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.
This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.
And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.
There can be no justification for the attacks of 9/11 and Bin Laden must be brought to justice and punished for those attacks. However, we cannot continue to delude ourselves into believing that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms. We cannot continue to do the very thing that Bin Laden says triggered the 9/11 attacks and not expect our actions to breed more extremism.
I recently received an email from a conservative friend that carried the text of Judge Williams remarks at the sentencing of Richard Reid, the infamous shoe bomber. Judge Williams said, in his conclusion:
It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose.
Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely.
What the email didn't convey were Reid's unapologetic remarks:
... further admit my allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah. With regards to what you said about killing innocent people, I will say one thing. Your government has killed 2 million children in Iraq. If you want to think about something, against 2 million, I don't see no comparison.
Your government has sponsored the rape and torture of Muslims in the prisons of Egypt and Turkey and Syria and Jordan with their money and with their weapons. I don't know, see what I done as being equal to rape and to torture, or to the deaths of the two million children in Iraq.
So, for this reason, I think I ought not apologize for my actions. I am at war with your country. I'm at war with them not for personal reasons but because they have murdered more than, so many children and they have oppressed my religion and they have oppressed people for no reason except that they say we believe in Allah.
This is the only reason that America sponsors Egypt. It's the only reason they sponsor Turkey. It's the only reason they back Israel.
It seems to me that we are propagating a myth and talking past one another. We are trying to fool ourselves into believing that our policies in the Middle East are fair and that we are unjustly being targeted by Islamic extremists just because they hate our freedom. We do not wish to deal with the very difficult and very real problems of the Middle East, perhaps because we do not want to jeopardize our relationships with the governments upon whom we depend for oil.
As a result we only further enrage the extremists. We will not be able to resolve these problems until we admit to their true nature and take steps to address them. This will require us to make difficult decisions and to push for reforms in some of the governments of our allies in the Middle East. Progress can only come through reform. This will require honesty, diplomacy, and sacrifice, but the rewards will be well worth the effort. The alternative is endless war.