gbaji wrote:
For those who think that the presense of US soldiers in Saudi Arabia enforcing the UN sanctions on Iraq was *not* a (arguably "the") major reason for this, why not just read what OBL wrote?
Please, find a quote from me saying that the US troops in saudi was not *a* part of their justification.
You won't, cos I never said it, yet you felt you needed 28 paragraphs telling me I did.
Nevermind...
Right, the fatwa from 1996 which was unrelated to 9/11.
Relevant.
Not only that, but you of course edited any reference to anything else, such as this statement:
Quote:
Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajakestan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Erithria, Chechnia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience. All of this and the world watch and hear, and not only didn't respond to these atrocities, but also with a clear conspiracy between the USA and its' allies and under the cover of the iniquitous United Nations, the dispossessed people were even prevented from obtaining arms to defend themselves.
The people of Islam awakened and realised that they are the main target for the aggression of the Zionist-Crusaders alliance. All false claims and propaganda about "Human Rights" were hammered down and exposed by the massacres that took place against the Muslims in every part of the world.
Why not quote that? Cos it doesn't fit within your rethoric?
The first thing you have to understand is that OBL has a personal gripe with SA. You can clearly see it in the same 1996 fatwa you linked, where he talks about SA saying:
Quote:
People are fully concerned about their every day livings; every body talks about the deterioration of the economy, inflation, ever increasing debts and jails full of prisoners. Government employees with limited income talk about debts of ten thousands and hundred thousands of Saudi Riyals . They complain that the value of the Riyal is greatly and continuously deteriorating among most of the main currencies. Great merchants and contractors speak about hundreds and thousands of million Riyals owed to them by the government. More than three hundred forty billions of Riyal owed by the government to the people in addition to the daily accumulated interest, let alone the foreign debt. People wonder whether we are the largest oil exporting country?! They even believe that this situation is a curse put on them by Allah for not objecting to the oppressive and illegitimate behaviour and measures of the ruling regime: Ignoring the divine Shari'ah law; depriving people of their legitimate rights; allowing the American to occupy the land of the two Holy Places; imprisonment, unjustly, of the sincere scholars. The honourable Ulamah and scholars as well as merchants, economists and eminent people of the country were all alerted by this disastrous situation.
Do you really think Palestinians, Yemenis, Sudanese, or Pakistanis give a shi't about the internal economics of SA?
OBL is a poster-boy. He's to Islamic terrorism what Che Guevara was to Communism. A face. Not much more.
Second, you do know that he said he wasn't responsible for 9/11? Only in 2004 did he say that he was an "inspiration" for it. So you can link all his fatwas, it doesn't matter since he himself admitted he wasn't the mastermind behind those attacks. He was not the main funder. He did not think them up. He did not organise or plan them. He was aware of them, sure, but AQ is not OBL.
If you really want to, I can link you heaps of statements from OBL where he talks about the 82 Lebanon war, Israel, the governments of Egypt and SA, Kashmir, and all those other gripes they have.
But even that's not really the point. The question is not about doing now what would've stopped 9/11. The question is about defeating this ideology. That's the crux, and that's why you need to understand the problem as a whole. The guys fighting today in Iraq don't give a crap about OBL or SA. The guys putting bombs in London every summer don't give a shi't about SA or sanctions either. It's much, much deeper than that.
For argument's sake, though, let's pretend that the main reason why 9/11 happened was because of the Iraqi sanctions and US troops in SA. Why not just move the US troops to Jordan? To Israel? Egypt? Quatar?
If their grieviances was that the sanctions were killing children, how does invading the country, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, and occupying the place, including the Imam Ali Mosque (one of the holiest sites in Islam) make it any better??
Even if what you argue was true, the actions of the Bush administrations in Iraq were the worst possible solution. "They're pissed off cos sanctions kills kids? Alright, let's just invade and occupy the whole place then."
And one last thing. If your argument was true, then surely AQ would lose it's
raison d'etre after
this, no? And yet, I don't see any signs of Islamic terrorism stopping, despite this fact.
How can that be? Could it be because US troops in Saudi Arabia were just one excuse amongst many? Could it be because instead of fighting the root of this ideology, we are simply adding weapons to their propganda by embarking on pointless and disatrous occupations of Muslim countries?
There is no way you can reasonably argue that the invasion of Iraq made the situation any better when it comes to fighting this ideology.
Though, I don't doubt you'll try...
Edited, Jul 19th 2007 10:25am by RedPhoenixxx