Why DID Al Qaeda start attacking the US in 1992?

[mistertrickster]

Simple answer--the US stationed our soldiers in Saudi Arabia during Saddam's attack on Kuwait.

The jihadis who would become Al Qaeda were incensed by this, but were willing to allow it as long as Iraq was still a threat.

Then Secr'y of War Dick Cheney said we wouldn't be there more than a day longer than necessary.

Operation Desert Storm officially ended in February of 1991. We were still in Saudia Arabia and moving troops through Yemen to Somalia in 1992 when the first car bomb exploded in a Yemen hotel that housed US soldiers (they had left).

Then came the first World Trade Center bombing, 1993.

Then a car bomb in Riyad, 1995.

Then the Khobar Towers, 1996, which killed 19 air force personnel.

Then the Embassy Bombings, 1998.

Then the Sullivans and the Cole, 2000.

Then 9-11.

And during all this, our military was on the ground in Saudi Arabia . . . desecrating the Land of the Two Holies by its very presence.

People do things for reasons . . .

This is the conclusion that a number of researchers have reached, notably Yossef Bodansky an Israeli-American political scientist who served as Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the US House of Representatives from 1988 to 2004. He wrote a book BEFORE 9-11 entitled "Bin Laden: the Man who Declared War on America."

Also, concurring in this opinion is "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism" by Robert Pape, an analysis of suicide terrorism. He concludes that people will only knowingly sacrifice themselves like this when their homeland has been invaded.

ON EDIT--Bin Laden's Fatwah (Declaration of Holy War, 1996)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fataw%C4%81_of_Osama_bin_Laden

It's title is this: "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places"

[rfranklin]

1. But,...but...they hate our freedoms!

Isn't that what we were told?

[TeamsterDem]

3. Well even that didn't matter because we used to think oceans could protect us

LOL

Only Bush could think that stupid shit. I loved that he included "we." Thanks for making me sound like a moron too, you dick. LOL

[City of Mills]

4. That's the story I got.

And let's face it, you're either with us, or you're against us.

[Amonester]

8. Maybe they hate our freedoms to go wherever we want...

especially when there's a lot of oil, and repuke PR groups.

[mistertrickster]

9. That never made good nonsense. Were we not free in 1986 when

Reagan was pres or in 1990 under Geo H W Bush?

[Exilednight]

48. If that's the case, then they love us now. Our government has taken most of those freedoms away.

[patrick t. cakes]

54. funny sad and true..........nt

[Drew Richards]

2. You forgot to add the most important reason according to Osama Himself...

The Westernization of the Saudi Royal Family...

He declared his first of two jihads against the West citing that as his first reason...

Just thought you would want to add it to your list...

[WinkyDink]

6. Funny how he didn't attack them, but instead took money from them.

[mistertrickster]

12. A lot of Arabs thought the attack on the Saudi Royals's friends (us) was

a de facto attack on them.

Fouad Adjami made this point soon after it happened.

[mistertrickster]

11. Well, we got a lot of rambling stuff from bin Laden, but the timeline tells the story. nt

[WinkyDink]

5. Dress rehearsal.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Good analysis,

and I completely agree with your last statement. I recommended your post, but it stayed at 0.

I guess some would dispute that the Middle East has good reason to be pissed at the US (and the west, in general), but it makes perfect sense to me.

[OneGrassRoot]

10. Heard this quote today:

"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evil doer; Nothing more difficult than understanding him."

~ Fyodor Dostoevsky


Seems pertinent to this thread.

I'm not a fan of the term "evil doer" since Bush used it ad nauseum, but still...the point here is valid, imho.

[tblue37]

42. And yet that label so perfectly fits Cheney and so many of his henchmen! nt

[OwnedByFerrets]

13. K and R No one hates us for our freedoms...they hate us

for being the evil empire we are across the globe.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Porn, Boobs, general sexual repression & the lack of progress in the Islamic World since the 1300s.

well, you asked.

[mistertrickster]

17. Islamic fundies have a lot of hate going on . . . but that doesn't explain

why they only chose to act on it in 1992 onwards . . .

[Warren DeMontague]

18. The "our troops in Saudi Arabia" (at the behest of the Saudi Royal family) explanation

doesn't explain the well-documented connections between Al Qaeda AND the same Saudi Royals.

[mistertrickster]

23. The Saudis kicked bin Laden out of the country. He was a threat to them too. nt

[RZM]

36. He most certainly is a threat to the royal family. But other elements think differently

Saudi Arabia is a complex place, just like everywhere else.

[tblue37]

43. There are A LOT of "Saudi ROyals." They are not all on the same side of

every issue--or many issues, for that matter.

[Warren DeMontague]

46. How convenient.

Yet, I bet the 9-11 $$$ trails that led back to any of them, no matter which "side" they claim to be on, were not followed as adequately as they could have been.

[tblue37]

57. No doubt that is true! nt

[Hell Hath No Fury]

62. You weren't around here back in the day --

but an old DUer Tinoire did fantastic research on all the Saudis that were turning up dead after 9/11. It was apparent that the royal family assured Bush that those Saudis involved internally would be taken care of by them, and a dozen or so very mysterious deaths took place within the months after 9/11. Some of those killed were in the royal family.

[Ikonoklast]

64. Lots of car, plane crashes, and suicides.

I remember that.

Who was the royal family member that was said to have 'died of thirst'?

I think he was found dumped out in the middle of the Empty Quarter.

It was a purge of the money-funnelers, and radical religious symapthizers within the House of Saud.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

65. Ah, you remember! :)

Tinoire was one of the best at digging up the darndest info -- but, she was ex-Army intel, so it made sense. :) I remember that "died of thirst" one too, but just the story, not the details.

The royal family was just as threatened by Bin Laden and more than happy to have their "enemies" done away with as the US.

[TheDebbieDee]

15. Here's the thing - If we hadn't had troops stationed in their "Holy Land",

the would have simply created some other "transgression" for which to attack us.

Seriously, it's all bull$hit! All throughout history, just about ANY reason used by one group to justify attacking another group is usually bull$hit!

I'm so sick of the bull$hit.........

[mistertrickster]

20. I disagree. How would you feel if the US were occupied by foreign troops?

Yet, oddly, we think that other people should see us as doing THEM a favor when we do it.

[TheDebbieDee]

28. Did the Saudi Government/Royal family give the US permission

to station troops there or did we invade Saudi Arabia, too?

Groups that are created to wage war or terrorism (or make quilts, for that matter) find reasons and ways to make war (or quilts).

ETA: Al-Queda had great success in Afghanistan and thought they were ready to wage war on the "Great Satan" that is the US. Al-Queda and OBL drew their little bull$hit line in the sand (Don't station any of your troops here!), the US crossed the line and it was on!

If it wasn't about the US troops in Saudi Arabia, it would have been for some other reason that they made up. Provocation has always been used to start wars!

[mistertrickster]

31. The Saudi Royals invited us in . . . but it was immensely unpopular among

the people.

That's why Bin Laden is seen as hero there.

[cali]

16. I'm not sure that suffices as an explanation. Crazy zealots will always find a reason.

[Amonester]

19. Yep. Causing troubles and pain has always been very profitable.

In a 'relatively' short term, that is.

[mistertrickster]

21. And they couldn't find a reason until 1992? Why didn't they find a reason in 1988? nt

[Warren DeMontague]

22. Because they were still focused on the Soviets. nt

[mistertrickster]

26. The USSR was out of Afghanistan by 1989. But you're right,

according to Brodsky, the Jihadis' victory in Afghanistan made them believe that they could defeat big powers in Islamic countries.

He thought this emboldened them to attack the US in Saudi Arabia.

[yardwork]

29. Why were they mad at the Soviets? Because they were occupying holy land.

The fact is that the alliance of oil interests (the people who run the U.S., especially our foreign policy) with the Saudi Royal Family has been evil partnership from the very beginning.

K&R.

[mistertrickster]

30. Yes and yes. The Jihadis considered Afghanistan "Islamic land."

That's why they fought to the death there.

And yes, our alliance with the Saudi Royal family is evil.

[Warren DeMontague]

38. In the 1970s, Afghanistan was progressive on many fronts, including rights for women.

Do you think the Taliban had "legitimate grievances"?

Anyone can call anything "holy land", and it almost invariably leads to a world of Shit. Say I declare your back yard as space sacred to J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, and demand that you either erect a giant 15 foot pipe in his honor, or move out?

[cali]

25. huh? that makes no sense.

first of all, it takes time to organize. secondly, it was in its infancy.

[mistertrickster]

27. But you're still ignoring the question of why Al Qaeda organized against us

at that particular TIME in history.

The US hasn't changed much in its actions or attitude toward the Middle East, except for our fighting Operation Desert Storm and stationing troops in Saudi Arabia.

[bhikkhu]

24. According to what bin laden said -

his perspective changed while he was on the CIA payroll, fighting the soviets in Afghanistan, as he saw coverage of the massive Israeli bombing of Beirut's suburbs. At which time, he found it ironic that he was being paid to use US weapons and training against the Soviets, while the Israelis were using US weapons and funding against Arab nations. The feelings he was being somehow scammed into thinking someone was "the real enemy" led him to consider that someone else was really the main enemy, which somehow would lead to his later theories and actions.

[RZM]

32. Actually the Meir Kahane killing is generally considered the first Islamic terrorist act in the US

It happened in November 1990. Kahane was an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi who had been known to make disparaging comments about Palestinians and Arabs in general. The killers were far from highly skilled operatives - apparently they got into the wrong getaway car.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meir_Kahane

[mistertrickster]

33. What about Sirhan B. Sirhan, 1968? Israeli - Palestinian stuff is rather different. nt

[RZM]

34. Don't know much about the RFK assassination, so I can't really comment on it

I really have no idea what motivated Sirhan Sirhan. My armchair sense was always that he was just kind of a random nut.

Even assuming that Sirhan was in the Islamic terrorist mold, that's still a ways from 1990. I would still consider the Kahane killing to be the first expression of 'millennial' Islamic terrorism in the US.

[westerebus]

44. Kahane was probably killed in the cross fire by his own security detail.

I've never considered the PLO an "Islamic" terrorist organization. Ergun, PLO, IRA, I suppose its who's writing the histories?

[RZM]

47. But that crossfire occurred because he was attacked

It's not like his own security detail was trying to kill him. They were reacting to an outside threat. If you're attempting to shoot down an unarmed person in the street for who they are or what they believe and you aren't in a war zone, you're probably a terrorist.

Maybe 'assassin' is a better term, but we're splitting hairs at that point.

[westerebus]

56. Shin Bet.

How well do you think Yigal Amir and Rebe Kahanne would have gotten along?

Teacher student or comrade in arms?

JDL and Likud.

[Warren DeMontague]

35. The phenomenon of leaders using fear of external enemies for power & distraction

is by no means exclusive to the United States, historically.

In fact, it's a damn near universal phenomenon.

And it takes place in the Arab and Islamic worlds, too. If 30 million Arabs in 10 or 15 different countries can somehow be convinced that "all their problems" somehow spring from the existence of the State of Israel, that makes it easier for leaders to distract them from the very real and pressing issues they have at home, including a lack of development keeping pace with the rest of the world. In Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Islamic world you have had a tremendous influx of wealth due to oil.. but has infrastructure and the development of domestic industry, technology, development, hell, simple social and economic progress kept up?

I don't think so.

It's easier for autocratic political and religious leaders to blame Israel, blame the Jews, Blame the Soviets, Blame the U.S. than it is to institute real change or reform.

Just like here, it's easier for some leaders to use jingoism and patriotic fervor for support than to actually better the lives of most Americans.

[RZM]

37. Exactly. Thank you.

People sometimes forget that every nation-state has its own internal dynamics and own power elite seeking to maintain influence. Foreign enemies are always convenient when it comes to distracting people from problems at home and the US and Israel are softballs when it comes to distracting people in the Islamic world. Hell, Ghaddafi had a statue of himself crushing a model of an F-16. It's easier to build one of those than to transform the system into one with real political pluralism.

[mistertrickster]

40. The Jewish state has been there since 1947. Al Qaeda attacked us in 1992.

There must have been a precipitating factor.

I think a lot of Arabs reacted to the presence of US troops there in the same way our heavily-armed Tea-party brothers would react to UN troops stationed here.

[Warren DeMontague]

41. And the US troops left Saudi Arabia in, what, 2003?

So Al Qaeda shouldn't be angry any more, right?

Also, there were no Indonesian troops in Saudi Arabia. Nor Spanish troops. How to explain the AQ attacks on Madrid, or Bali, then?

[RZM]

50. Bin Laden actaully referred to the Treaty of Sevres after the US started bombing Afghanistan in 2001

That was the treaty that partitioned the Ottoman Empire in 1920 after WWI. So they've gone back further than that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_S%C3%A8vres

[JoePhilly]

39. Read the book ... "The Looming Tower" ... covers it all very well. nt

[treestar]

45. Troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, support of Israel

and sanctions against Iraq. (I've been reading on it all day).

[Synicus Maximus]

49. Don't forget Beirut Barracks in 1983, which killed 241 American and

58 French troops.

[bvar22]

51. K&R

I remember.

[Odin2005]

52. And don't forget that we funded those fuckers to fight the Russians. Dumbest idea ever.

Never arm fundamentalists, they hate you will turn around and bite you when their other enemy is eliminated.

[chrisa]

55. The ironic part is, the best possible outcome would have been

if the Soviet Union had won. We supported the bad guys and paid the price for it.

[Hippo_Tron]

59. I don't understand why we didn't just let them

I understand arming the opposition to weaken the Soviet Union. But letting them try to deal with occupying Afghanistan would've caused even more of a clusterfuck for them.

[eallen]

53. No civilized person recognizes "holy land." If that pisses them off, screw them.

If Afghanis and Pakistanis are pissed off because American troops are in Saudi Arabia, which is no more their land than ours, then screw them.

The notion of "holy land" is an obscenity.

I say we should not modify our foreign policy one iota because of any one's concern with "holy land."

:hippie:

[EFerrari]

58. But military occupations, those are the height of civility.

[mistertrickster]

60. So, you have no problem with the US getting occupied by foreign troops?

Did I get that right?

[eallen]

61. We're not occupying Saudi Arabia. And you'll see foreign troops in the US all the time....

At our government's invitation.

If some KKK idiots gets upset that we regularly host, oh, UK troops and warships for example, and were to bomb London because of that, that would be about the analogous act.

:hippie:

[ikri]

68. I seem to remember

The USA got quite pissy with the USSR when they tried to place troops and armaments in a nearby country that the USA had generally considered to be within it's sphere of influence.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Most major powers have, at some point, got into conflicts with others when they've seen someone else playing in their metaphorical backyard. Normally it's what you have ambassadors for, people on the ground to smooth over ruffled feathers and back away from conflicts, but who do you talk to in a situation where the governments involved aren't the ones taking offence?

[eallen]

73. Absolutely. And has ZERO to do with the notion of "holy land."

Let me sum those two motivations as succinctly as possible.

1) "We're unwilling to let you host the USSR's nuclear arsenal because that changes nuclear deterrence in a way that is too much a risk to our nation."

2) "We're unwilling to see US troops in Saudi Arabia because they are infidels and Saudi Arabia is holy land."

The first may be misguided or mistaken. But it is sane. That the US and USSR were enemies, and that they had strategic military interests, are both notions easily understood in real terms. The second claim is insane. It would require everyone to step carefully with regard to every possible religion for fear of trespassing on the holy lands, or insulting the holy prophets, or taking the wrong god's name in vain, or whatever other notion some religion has. If people really are moved to terrorism because of infidels on holy land or because some cartoonist insults a prophet, they are not ready to live in the modern world. I don't care what religion. I don't care what land. I don't care what prophet. I don't care what god.

:hippie:

[Ratty]

63. If the answer isn't "they hate us for our freedom"

Then you're a traitor who hates the US.

[krispos42]

66. This is why I like the Navy

You can maintain a mobile air strip, a battalion of Marines, 4 dozen fighter jets, dozens of attack and transport helicopters, and hundreds of offensive and defensive missiles in the region... without getting a grain of sand on a single soldier's combat boot.

*shrug*

Say what you want about aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ship... it's a lot cheaper than the bases turn out to be when you factor the multi-year-long wars.

[blindpig]

67. Blowback from imperialism, chickens coming home to roost.

Though 'infidel' troops in their holy land was a cause celebrie that presence was due to imperial design and of course there are plenty other reasons, US support of Israel being the biggest.

It's all imperialism and walks hand in hand with capitalism.

[ProfessorGAC]

69. No Buying It

I think their reasons were far more obtuse. They believe in a "good old days" of islamism that makes them no more rational than the fundie nut jobs in this country.

I think you're trying to find some justification for a heinous action that can't be justified, no matter our foreign policy blunders.
GAC

[PRETZEL]

70. Might be time to revisit Steve Coll's book

"Ghost Wars"

Great book and extremely informative.

[bighart]

71. I think the jihadist were busy dealing with Russia in Afghanistan

up until 1988 and needed a new "enemy of Islam" once that was over.

[mistertrickster]

72. And by putting our troops in Saudi, we gave them an big juicy target. nt