Representative Press Blog

Craigslist comment: " Bin Laden might well claim other causes if he couldn't claim the ones he's got, but it's a real mistake to think that the societal response to him would be the same. He's picked causes that wide swaths of people share, and it doesn't really matter whether he believes in them or not, so long as the people who support him (both actively and passively) share the views he is presenting. If we work to take away the grievances, we undermine his support."

There is no evidence that bin Laden isn't actually angered by the specific foreign policies he complains about.

It is extremely unlikely that bin Laden didn't actually object to the specific foreign policies that he complains about, millions and millions of other people object to the same policies, by what "logic" would it be that bin Laden would be in a extremely small minority that "doesn't care" about the policies or thinks they are fine?

There is no logical reason to think bin Laden would not be in agreement with Abdallah Azzam, who was born in Palestine and was an "early spiritual mentor" of Osama bin Laden, about Palestine. (see page 2 of "Al-Qaeda" by Jason Burke )

Contrary to the insistences of some people who deny that specific US policies have nothing to do with why we are getting attacked (they also don't want the specific US policies to be stopped), there is no evidence that bin Laden isn't actually angered by the specific foreign policies that he and others have complained about and have clearly stated for years. Specific foreign policies that wrong millions of people in the Middle East and which millions of people in the Middle East object to even if they may not share the same fundamentalist interpretation of Islam or even follow basic Islamic practices at all. Also a grievance shared by millions of people who think it is wrong to respond to the policies with the use of terrorism. It would actually be extremely unlikely that bin Laden didn't actually object to the specific foreign policies that he complains about, millions and millions of other people object to the policies, by what "logic" would it be that bin Laden would be in the extremely small minority that "doesn't care" about the policies or thinks they are fine? The claim that bin Laden isn't actually angered by the US foreign policies is a contrived argument obviously to serve as a means to keep the foreign policies from being focused on. Nearly everyone in the region thinks the US policies are wrong, why in the world wouldn't bin Laden share the same greivances? It makes no sense to insist bin Laden isn't actually angered by the same policies nearly everyone else is. (unless of course you are trying to dupe the public into thinking the policies have nothing to do with why we are being attacked)

I agree with you that the if we take away the grievances by ending the specific foreign policies we undermine the support for attacks that bin Laden has repeatedly said are carried out with the intention of ending the specific foreign policies. It is important to point out that US officials serve special interests that want the foreign policies to continue so they feed the public a lie that the attacks are about anything else but the specific foreign policies.
It is the shared grievances that are the motive for the attacks.

The man who conceived and directed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was motivated by his strong disagreement with American support for Israel.
His name is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his motivation for the crime of the 9/11 attacks was his objection to the US foreign policy of supporting Israel said the final report of the Sept. 11 Commission.

"After he was captured in Pakistan in early 2003, he told his interrogators that although he had developed no special complaint about America in his years here, he [ Khalid Shaikh Mohammed ] felt strongly that U.S. support of Israel was wrong and could be corrected by attacking the United States,"" reports LA Times writer Terry McDermott.

The ring leader of the September 11th suicide hijackers also held the same grievance. Mohamed Atta coordinated the other 9/11 terrorists and he was a pilot who flew into the WTC. Ralph Bodenstein, who traveled, worked and talked a lot with Mohamed Atta, is quoted as describing Mohamed Atta as "most imbued actually about Israeli politics in the region and about US protection of these Israeli politics in the region. And he was to a degree personally suffering from that."

This motive is shared by the terrorists who first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. The terrorists sent a letter to the New York Times after attacking the WTC, "We declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel the state of terrorism and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region."