Osama bin Laden: Is He Right?

Recently bin Laden said that he would not use planes if words worked for him.. and what exactly does he mean by that? Before I do explain, I do not mean to say that killing innocent lives for a political agenda is something I adhere to, because it is not. I am very critical of the use nuclear weapons in Japan and most certainly the use of deadly force by civilian aircraft onto other civilians.

However, is U.S. foreign policy a part of the problem here? What is it that Osama bin Laden refers to? It might just be that we stationed over 25,000 troops in Saudi Arabia, or bombed Iraq (two holy places), or the fact that we give Israel billions every year. I don't know, maybe that pisses them off. In 1991, shortly after we "left" the Middle East and decided not to invade Baghdad, the WTC was bombed. Nothing too serious, and really nothing new.

Since 1953 we have meddled in the Middle East, before this time they loved us, but since this time the relationship has become extremely unstable. Embassies have been bombed throughout the 70s and 80s, an Iranian Revolution against what was a CIA coupe (Operation Ajax). Then, of course the 1991 bombing of the WTC, however we failed to connect the dots or to care. Fast forward ten years and nearly 3,000 lay dead in part due to our failure to execute a good foreign policy.

Many will say that we must go and get them before they come and get us, if we fight them there they will won't come here. That's just foolish, we were already there, and they realized that if they only attacked government agents directly involved, or closely related to, it would not cause the clamour they needed. Killing civilians would, it would cause the American people to support a more serious involvement in the Middle East to what the terrorist believe to bankrupt the already debt-ridden empire of America.

Is being over there going to solve this problem? Can we weed out muslim extremism through force and coercion? And if so, doesn't this lay the foundation for perpetual warfare? What world do we live in exactly?