Why Do They (Terrorists) Hate Us?

“They hate us, not because of anything bad
we’ve done. This has nothing to do with any
aggression on the part of the United States of
America. It has nothing to do with anything
America is taking from anyone. It has nothing
to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us
for the freedoms that we have and the
freedoms that we want to share with the world
because those freedoms are in conflict with
their perverted interpretation of their religion.Rudy Giuliani
Former Mayor (R)
of New York

Their maniacal, violent, and perverted
interpretation of their religion, in which they
train their young people to be suicide bombers,
and they train them to hate you and despise you
and they train them to hate your religion and to
not allow you to have religion of your own or
anyone else. They hate us for the reasons that are
the best about us, because we have freedom of
religion, because we have freedom for women,
because women are allowed to participate in
society, because we have elections, because we
have a free economy. Well, we’re not giving that
up, and you’re not going to come and take it
from us.”
Rudy Giuliani
Former Mayor (R)
of New York

At least, this is what our rulers have led us to
believe. But is it the only possible
explanation? To answer that we must start at
the beginning – with the Founding Fathers.

“The great rule of conduct for us in
regard to foreign nations is in extending
our commercial relations, to have with
them as little political connection as
possible.”
George Washington
Founder of America

“The essential principles of our
Government, and consequently those
which ought to shape its Administration,
are peace, commerce, and honest
friendship with all nations, entangling
alliances with none.”
Thomas Jefferson
Founder of America

“Wherever the standard of freedom and
Independence has been or shall be
unfurled, there will America’s heart, her
benedictions, and her prayers be. But she
goes not abroad in search of monsters
to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the
freedom and independence of all. She is
the champion and vindicator only of her
own.”
John Quincy Adams
Founder of America

 American foreign policy has changed dramatically
since the Founders’ time.
 The United States currently has:
◦ Entangling alliances among many nations
◦ Troops stationed in 135 countries
◦ Almost 1,000 military bases encircling the globe
 This intervention into foreign lands is a major reason
why they hate us. How is that? Well first we need to
understand what blowback is…

Scheuer is the world’s expert on Osama bin Laden.
He’s read everything bin Laden has ever written.
His argument is that the perpetrators of terrorist
attacks on Americans should be pursued mercilessly
for their acts of barbarism. But it is unreasonable,
even utopian, not to expect people to grow resentful,
and desirous of revenge, when your government
bombs them, supports police states in their
countries, and imposes murderous sanctions on
them. That revenge, in its various forms, is what the
CIA calls blowback – the unintended consequences of
military intervention.
Michael Scheuer
Former Chief of
CIA’s Osama bin
Laden Unit

“This war is dangerous to America
because it’s based, not on gender equality,
as Mr. Giuliani suggested, or any other
kind of freedom, but simply because of
what we do in the Islamic world –
because ‘we’re over there.’”
Michael Scheuer
Former Chief of
CIA’s Osama bin
Laden Unit

So what is an example of blowback that caused Osama
bin Laden to hate us?

“The CIA supported Osama bin Laden, like so
many other extreme fundamentalists in Afghanistan
who were fighting Russia, from at least 1984 on. It
was only after the Russians had bombed Afghanistan
back to the stone age and suffered a Vietnam-like
defeat, and the United States had walked away
from the death and destruction the CIA had
helped cause, that Osama bin Laden turned against
his American supporters. The last straw as far as he
was concerned was the way that ‘infidel’American
troops – around 35,000 of them – remained in Saudi
Arabia after the first Gulf War to prop up the
Saudis excessively wealthy and fiercely
authoritarian regime.
Chalmers Johnson
CIA Consultant
Blowback: The Costs
and Consequences of
American Empire

Devoutly Muslim citizens of that kingdom saw the
troops’ presence as a humiliation to the country
and an insult to their religion. Some Saudis
protested and began to launch attacks against
Americans and against the Saudi regime itself. In
June 1996, terrorists associated with Osama bin
Laden bombed the Khobar Towers apartments near
Dhahran airport, killing nineteen American airmen
and wounding scores more.”
Chalmers Johnson
CIA Consultant
Blowback: The Costs
and Consequences of
American Empire

Paul Wolfowitz was a major architect of
President Bush’s Iraq policy and its most
hawkish advocate. He said that a benefit of
the invasion “that has gone by almost
unnoticed--but it’s huge--is that by complete
mutual agreement between the U.S. and the
Saudi government we can now remove
almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia.
Their presence there over the last 12 years
has been a source of enormous difficulty for a
friendly government. It’s been a huge
recruiting device for al Qaeda.
Paul Wolfowitz
Deputy Secretary of Defense
under George W. Bush

In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his
principle grievances was the presence of so-
called crusader forces on the holy land,
Mecca and Medina. I think just lifting that
burden from the Saudis is itself going to open
the door to other positive things. I don’t want
to speak in messianic terms. It’s not going to
change things overnight, but it’s a huge
improvement.”
(Source:http://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2
594)
Paul Wolfowitz
Deputy Secretary of Defense
under George W. Bush

“The confirmation of this whole idea of why
they come here came from none other than Paul
Wolfowitz. But what he doesn’t understand, as
Michael Scheuer explains, is that the whole
peninsula is holy land to the Muslims, including
Iraq. So the fact that we don’t have troops right
now in Saudi Arabia means nothing. We’re still
over there, so the incentive is still there. And
if it were true that we had to deal with the
people most responsible for 9/11, it was not the
Iraqis, it was not the Iranians, it was Saudi
Arabia – 15 of them! So if you had to declare
war, that is where you should have gone.”
Ron Paul
Texas Congressman (R) and
Presidential Candidate

So how do entangling alliances create hatred toward
us?

“Many Americans have wondered, ‘Why do
they hate us?’ Bin Laden and al Qaeda have
answered this question. America is held
responsible for the governments of Muslim
countries, ridiculed by al Qaeda as ‘your
[America’s] agents,’ because of America’s
support for their countries’ repressive
rulers.”
Page 51

“Our fight against these governments is not
separate from our fight against you.”
Osama bin Laden
9-11 Commission
Report (Page 51)

“As the 9/11 commission report indicated,
there were consequences for our
presence in the Middle East and if we
seriously want to address the terrorism
problem we have to be serious about that
issue. Giuliani indicated that he was not
only not serious about that issue, but
seemed to be ignorant of both the 9/11
[Commission] Report and political
realities in the Middle East.”
Philip Giraldi
Former counter-
terrorism specialist
and military
intelligence officer of
the CIA

So how does having troops around the world create
hatred toward us?

Robert Pape has done more research than
anyone on the subject of suicide
terrorism by creating a database of every
attack between 1980 and 2009, all 2,150 of
them. He found up to 2003 that the
country that committed the most suicide
terrorism was not Islamic, it was Sri
Lanka (an island near India). The Tamil
Tigers there are a non-religious Marxist
group that want to secede. They invented
the idea of strapping bombs to your chest.
Robert Pape
Dying To Win: The
Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism

Pape also discovered that the countries
that are most radical in their Islamic
philosophy, Iran and Sudan (near Egypt),
commit no suicide terrorism. He explains
that the most important element in getting
someone willing to commit suicide
terrorism is occupation by a foreign force.
The terrorists want “to make modern
democracies withdraw military forces from
the territory the terrorists view as their
homeland.”
Robert Pape
Dying To Win: The
Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism

The only role religion plays in this
struggle, according to Pape, is that the
willingness of the occupied to resort to
suicide attacks increases when the
occupying army is made of people who
come from far away, look different and
believe differently due to the fear that
their entire way of life will come under
attack.
Robert Pape
Dying To Win: The
Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism

“If Islamic fundamentalism were the
principal factor driving transnational
suicide terrorism, such attacks should not
be related to the ebb and flow of foreign
occupation of particular countries.
Islamic fundamentalism is a global
phenomenon, one that has been in
existence in a variety of forms, not just
for many decades, but almost since the
inception of Islam itself.
Robert Pape
Cutting the Fuse: The
Explosion of Global Suicide
Terrorism and How to Stop It

Hence, Islamic fundamentalism cannot
account for the rise of transnational
suicide terrorism over the past 30 years,
why it occurs intensely at some times and
not others at specific places and times
within this 30-year time span, and—most
especially—why transnational suicide
terrorism declines.”
Robert Pape
Cutting the Fuse: The
Explosion of Global Suicide
Terrorism and How to Stop It

“In 2002, after two U.S. soldiers were
acquitted by a U.S. military court in South
Korea of negligent homicide in the deaths of
two Korean schoolgirls, Koreans
demonstrated, burned American flags,
chanted anti-American slogans, and
demanded that U.S. troops leave the
country. Hatred of the United States is not a
result of our freedoms and our values, it is a
direct result of our intervention into the affairs
of other countries and our military presence
around the world.”
Laurence Vance
What’s Wrong with the
U.S. Global Empire?

So how does having almost 1,000 bases around the
world create hatred toward us?

“Why do so many Americans feel as if we have
a right to a military presence in some 160
countries when we wouldn’t stand for even
one foreign base on our soil, for any reason?
These are not embassies, mind you, these are
military installations. The reality is that our
military presence on foreign soil is as offensive
to the people that live there as armed Chinese
troops would be if they were stationed in Texas.
We would not stand for it here, but we have had
a globe-straddling empire and a very intrusive
foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of
hatred and resentment towards us.”
Ron Paul

Angry: Some 6,000 people gathered at a rally in Tokyo on Jan. 30, 2010. The slogans written
in Japanese read “We don’t need Futenma base,” in red, and “We refuse new Henoko base,”
in blue.

Angry: Thousands of Americans gathered at a rally at Ground Zero on Aug. 22, 2010. The
protesters are angry at a mosque being built on what they consider holy ground. Imagine if
instead of a mere mosque, it was an Islamic military base instead. That is how Muslims feel.

But don’t our troops do some good things for other
countries?

Well, would you be OK with Chinese troops in your
neighborhood as long as they passed out toys for tots? Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you.

So then why did the terrorists attack innocent
bystanders on 9/11?

“The suicidal assassins of September
11, 2001 did not ‘attack America,’ as
political leaders and news media in the
United States have tried to maintain;
they attacked American foreign
policy. Employing the strategy of the
weak, they killed innocent bystanders,
whose innocence is, of course, no
different from that of the civilians
killed by American bombs in Iraq,
Serbia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.”
Chalmers Johnson
CIA Consultant
Blowback: The Costs
and Consequences of
American Empire

But does that mean that we have to do whatever the bin
Ladens of the world want or else they will raise a
bunch of terrorists to come after us?

“About the only thing that can hold
together the very loose temporary alliance
that Osama bin Laden has assembled is a
common Muslim hatred for the impact of
U.S. foreign policy…. They all agree they
hate U.S. foreign policy. To the degree we
change that policy in the interests of the
United States, they become more and
more focused on their local problems…”
Michael Scheuer
Former Chief of
CIA’s Osama bin
Laden Unit

So are you saying that Americans are to blame for
9/11?

To the civilians suffering it, blowback
typically manifests itself as “random”
acts of political violence without a
discernible, direct cause; because the
public—in whose name the
intelligence agency acted—are
ignorant of the effected secret attacks
that provoked revenge (counter-attack)
against them.
Blowback

So are you excusing the terrorists for their evil acts?

“Looking for motive is not the same thing as
making excuses; detectives always look for
the motive behind the crime, but no one
thinks they are looking to excuse murder.
Obviously the onus of blame rests with those
who perpetrate acts of terror, regardless of
their motivation. The questions Scheuer and I
are asking is not who is morally responsible
for terrorism – only a fool would place the
moral responsibility for terrorism on anyone
other than the terrorists themselves.
Ron Paul

The question we are asking is less doltish
and more serious: given that a hyper-
interventionist foreign policy is very likely
to lead to this kind of blowback, are we
still sure we want such a foreign policy? Is
it actually making us less safe?”
Ron Paul

But doesn’t patriotism and love of country mean that I
should give my government quasi-religious
subordination no matter what it does, especially
concerning foreign policy?

“It is the duty of every Patriot to
protect his country from his
government.”
Thomas Paine
Founder of America

“Where liberty is, there is my country.”
Benjamin Franklin
Founder of America

But didn’t Muhammad describe the climax of Islam on
earth as one in which the whole world would be
Muslim?

“Yes, but there’s as much chance of that
happening in any kind of foreseeable
future as the application of the Golden
Rule, and ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘love
thy neighbor’ in the Christian world.
There’s no chance. Bin Laden is popular
and his message resonates because it is a
defensive message. It is very much a
message of ‘get out and leave us to our
own problems.’”
Michael Scheuer
Former Chief of
CIA’s Osama bin
Laden Unit

But don’t Muslims hate America because we have an
immoral culture compared to theirs?

“According to Scheuer, the Ayatollah
Khomeini [the Supreme Leader of
Iran from 1979 to 1989] tried over the
course of a decade to instigate a jihad
[holy war] against America on
account of our wickedness, our
entertainment, our women in the
workplace, and the like. It was a
complete flop. No one blew himself
up because of R-rated movies.
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Best-selling Libertarian
Author and Historian
No Patronizing,
No Sloganeering

What made Osama bin Laden’s
message attractive, on the other hand,
was precisely that it was defensive in
nature, focusing on specific
grievances that resonated with his
Muslim audience. That, and not a war
against the West over its decadence, is
what won recruits. In other words,
we may in fact be dealing not with
comic-book villains but with actual
human beings.”
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Best-selling Libertarian
Author and Historian
No Patronizing,
No Sloganeering

“I’m not so sure the role of the United
States is to go around the world and
say, ‘This is the way it’s got to be.’ I
think one way for us to end up being
viewed as the ‘ugly American’ is for
us to go around the world saying, ‘We
do it this way; so should you.’ I think
the United States must be humble in
how we treat nations that are figuring
out how to chart their own course.”
George W. Bush
Former President
Dodging an Iraqi Shoe

So why didn't Germany, Japan, and South Korea have a
bunch of suicide bombers attack America when
America occupied them during the Cold War?

Robert Pape
Dying To Win: The
Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism
“When one country is in political control of
another, the national identities of both
communities usually include more negative
images of the other than do the identities of
the same two nations when they are at peace.
The boundary between the nations hardens, as
well. The main exception is when the occupied
community would face an even greater threat
from a different foreign enemy, if it were not
occupied.

As David Edelstein has shown, the threat
from the Soviet Union dampened nationalist
resistance to the American occupation of
Germany and Japan during the Cold War and
created a powerful basis for the establishment
of deep institutional bonds that reinforced
cooperation among the alliance partners.
Absent a superior external threat, however, the
identity of the foreign occupier is normally the
most important ‘other’ in relation to the
occupied community.”
Robert Pape
Dying To Win: The
Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism

The only reason that Osama and his gang are able to
recruit suicide terrorists is by pointing to real, earthly
grievances: specifically the meddling of foreign
occupying armies in their countries – not 72 virgins
in heaven, not freedom, nor a plan to create an
Islamic Caliphate.
This is the answer to “why they hate us.” Why is it a
forbidden answer?

“It’s very common for the slurs to be thrown
when you say something like this. You’re an
appeaser, you’re an anti-American. I think it’s a
shame, but the governing establishment wants
to protect itself. It does not want to talk about
these issues. At the end of the debate,
Americans may decide that the foreign policy
status quo that exists at the moment is what they
want. But if they do, they will at least go into it
with their eyes open, and know that they are in
for an extended period of war, a tremendously
bloody and costly war.”
Michael Scheuer
Former Chief of
CIA’s Osama bin
Laden Unit

A partial list of past as well as some on-going American foreign policy interventions
that have caused blowback: Now We Know the Cause of Islamic Terrorism by Jim Cox
Ron Paul advocates the use of Letters of Marque and Reprisal as described in the
Constitution, which would have been a far superior, creative and modern response to
the attacks of 9/11 than a full-scale military operation: Ron Paul's Wise Foreign Policy
by Rick Fisk
If the US stopped sending foreign aid to Israel and its enemies, it would actually
strengthen the U.S. and Israel, as well as end one of the greatest impetuses for
terrorism:
An Open Letter to the Jewish Community in Behalf of Ron Paul by Walter Block
An Open Letter to the Jewish Community in Behalf of Ron Paul, Part II by Walter Block
[LewRockwell.com is the most read libertarian website in the world, the one that Ron Paul
reads first thing in the morning. Also, see Mises.org for a lifetime of learning.]

World Wide War Project
The official website dedicated to verifying Dr. Jonathan M.
Kolkey’s provocative conclusions based on his exhaustive and
academically sound historical research collected over three
decades that conclusively link the root cause of all wars with
leaders’ cynical pursuit of their own political and personal self-
interest. It demonstrates that these same government leaders
disseminate for public consumption bogus “reasons” for their
wars, all the while admitting in private their real self-serving
motives.

How victory in the war in Iraq is a logical impossibility and an analysis of the fallacious
line of thinking that “we’re fighting them over there so that we don’t have to fight them
over here.”
Don't Think, Just Say the Slogan by Vedran Vuk
Victory in Iraq by Vedran Vuk and Walter Block
A video showing how the CIA’s 1953 coup d’état in Iran caused blowback in the form of
the taking of American hostages. Is Ron Paul serious? Blowback in 1979 from a 1953
coup?
[This video plays on next slide. There are a few more slides after the video. Don’t
forget to click for the next slide after the video finishes!]

Source: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/

Norman Pohdoretz, author of World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism
and Rudy Giuliani’s foreign policy advisor, is questioned about the 1953 coup. “Yeah, I
think the CIA did in fact have something to do with the overthrow of Mosaddegh, but to
tell you the truth I have no stomach for this kind of ancient history.” (Starts at 6:09 in
the video)
We Are Change NYC Confronts Norman Podhoretz!!

Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!

US Troops discuss "Drop-Weapons"

Conservatives need to question foreign policy
as much as they question domestic policy
SA@TAC - Ron Paul's Conservative Foreign Policy

Historian Tom Woods explains how he came to
realize that the conservative tradition has
become warped on foreign policy
War, Ron Paul, and Conservatism

Ron Paul debates prominent neo-conservative
Dinesh D'Souza
FreedomFest 2007 The BIG Debate 6of7 Rebuttal
D'Souza & Paul

Why Do They (Terrorists) Hate Us?

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Why Do They (Terrorists) Hate Us?