the MAIN issue was U.S. support of Israel

jillbryant asked, "do you actually think the terrorists wouldn't have attacked the US without being involved in Israel? Unless you say the first Gulf War was due to Israel also..."

Yes, the MAIN issue was U.S. support of Israel and in all in all likelihood the terrorists would have concentrated on someplace else like Chechnya if the U.S. was not supporting Israel.

In October 2002 a man suspected of helping to carry out the 9/11 attack told a German court that the alleged leader of the hijackers, Mohammed Atta, had wanted to fight in Chechnya.
He was one of the two terrorist pilots who crashed the two planes into the WTC and they shared the same motivation: Mohammed Atta, who flew into WTC 1, was described by one Ralph Bodenstein, who traveled, worked and talked with him, as "most imbued actually about Israeli politics in the region and about U.S. protection of these Israeli politics in the region. And he was to a degree personally suffering from that." Marwan al-Shehhi, the pilot who flew into WTC 2, was focused on the same thing, "when someone asked why he and Atta never laughed, Shehhi retorted,"How can you laugh when people are dying in Palestine?"" - page 162 THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT

The 9/11 Commission reported on the motive of the "mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks." On page 147 of the 9/11 Commission Report, it says "By his own account, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel. "" see Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's motivation was his objection to the US foreign policy of supporting Israel said the final report of the Sept. 11 Commission.

Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 WTC bomber, was motivated to attack the US because of US support of Israel: He had no other motivation, no other issue.

You mentioned the first Gulf war, the media suppressed to a large extent [you don't seem to know about it] Saddam's offer to withdraw (which would have avoided the war) if Israel withdrew from the occupied territories.

"On August 12, Iraq proposed a settlement linking its withdrawal from Kuwait to withdrawal from other occupied Arab lands: Syria and Israel from Lebanon, and Israel from the territories it conquered in 1967. Two weeks later, about the time that Friedman warned of the dangers of diplomacy, the Times learned of a considerably more far-reaching offer from Iraq, but chose to suppress it. A similar (or perhaps the same) offer was leaked to the suburban New York journal Newsday, which published it very prominently on August 29, compelling the Times to give it marginal and dismissive notice the next day. The Iraqi offer was delivered to National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft by a former high-ranking U.S. official on August 23. It called for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait in return for the lifting of sanctions, full Iraqi control of the Rumailah oil field that extends about 2 miles into Kuwaiti territory over a disputed border, and guaranteed Iraqi access to the Gulf, which involves the status of two uninhabited islands that had been assigned by Britain to Kuwait in the imperial settlement, thus leaving Iraq virtually landlocked. Iraq also proposed negotiations on an oil agreement "satisfactory to both nations' national security interest," on "the stability of the gulf," and on plans "to alleviate Iraq's economical and financial problems." There was no mention of U.S. troop withdrawal or other preconditions. An Administration official who specializes in Mideast affairs described the proposal as "serious" and "negotiable." Like others, this diplomatic opportunity quickly passed. Where noted at all in the media, the offer was dismissed on the grounds that the White House was not interested; surely true, and sufficient for the offer to be written out of history, on the assumption that all must serve the whims of power."

"Professing high principle, Washington moved vigorously to block all diplomatic efforts, restricting its own contacts with Iraq to delivery of an ultimatum demanding immediate and total capitulation to U.S. force -- what George Bush called "going the extra mile to achieve a peaceful solution." Europeans were warned not to deviate from the firm U.S. rejection of any form of diplomacy or any hint of willingness to negotiate. Washington also sternly rejected any "linkage" with regional issues, expressing its moral revulsion at the very thought of rewarding an aggressor by considering problems of armaments, security, and others in a regional context. The effect was to minimize the likelihood that Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait might be arranged without the threat or use of force. It is difficult to imagine that this was not the purpose of the rejection of "linkage," also an unprecedented stand." -The Gulf Crisis Noam Chomsky Z Magazine, February, 1991
Once again we pay a price because of powerful special interests.