Edited for spelling
Video of the testimony and a transcript are available on the 911 Commission's website. To view the video go to the following page:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing12/index.htmSelect
Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - Panel 2, the question partially shown in the youtube clip in the OP starts at around 2:07:21.
(At least for the low-res Windows Media version.)If we go to the transcript, we can read the full question and answer:
MR. HAMILTON: Thank you very much for your testimony. I'm interested in the question of motivation of these hijackers, and my question is really directed to the agents. You've looked and examined the lives of these people as closely as anybody. It's an extraordinary thing to be able to motivate someone to kill themselves. I am aware of the Usama Bin Ladin's statements about the religious and the political and the economic reasons, and I really don't want to get into that. But what have you found out about why these men did what they did? What motivated them to do it?
MR. FITZGERALD: I believe they feel a sense of outrage against the United States. They identify with the Palestinian problem, they identify with people who oppose repressive regimes, and I believe they tend to focus their anger on the United States as to what would motivate a young man to sacrifice his rights, to, really, go to that extraordinary next step to do that. Much of it, I believe, originates in rage, and I think when you look at the 19 hijackers and see where they came from, you can begin to see the seeds of that -- that disenfranchisement and anger.
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing12/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-06-16.htmNow let's look at a couple of excerpts from the report itself:
BIN LADIN'S APPEAL IN THE ISLAMIC WORLDIt is the story of eccentric and violent ideas sprouting in the fertile ground of political and social turmoil. It is the story of an organization poised to seize its historical moment. How did Bin Ladin-with his call for the indiscriminate killing of Americans-win thousands of followers and some degree of approval from millions more?
The history, culture, and body of beliefs from which Bin Ladin has shaped and spread his message are largely unknown to many Americans. Seizing on symbols of Islam's past greatness, he promises to restore pride to people who consider themselves the victims of successive foreign masters. He uses cultural and religious allusions to the holy Qur'an and some of its interpreters. He appeals to people disoriented by cyclonic change as they confront modernity and globalization. His rhetoric selectively draws from multiple sources-Islam, history, and the region's political and economic malaise. He also stresses grievances against the United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam's holiest sites. He spoke of the suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War, and he protested U.S. support of Israel.
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch2.htm Many Americans have wondered, "Why do 'they' hate us?" Some also ask, "What can we do to stop these attacks?"
Bin Ladin and al Qaeda have given answers to both these questions. To the first, they say that America had attacked Islam; America is responsible for all conflicts involving Muslims. Thus Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians fight with Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the Philippine government fights ethnic Muslims in its southern islands. America is also held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries, derided by al Qaeda as "your agents." Bin Ladin has stated flatly, "Our fight against these governments is not separate from our fight against you." These charges found a ready audience among millions of Arabs and Muslims angry at the United States because of issues ranging from Iraq to Palestine to America's support for their countries' repressive rulers.
Bin Ladin's grievance with the United States may have started in reaction to specific U.S. policies but it quickly became far deeper. To the second question, what America could do, al Qaeda's answer was that America should abandon the Middle East, convert to Islam, and end the immorality and godlessness of its society and culture: "It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind." If the United States did not comply, it would be at war with the Islamic nation, a nation that al Qaeda's leaders said "desires death more than you desire life."
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch2.htmI'm not quite sure what exactly you feel has been "suppressed".
- Make7
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