Although the rhetoric for the September 11 attacks may be linked to a US action that
requires retaliation, the movement has (obviously) long been at war. What they hate about the West can be observed and interpreted by thousands of different
experts...or you can just read the Al-Qaeda statements themselves.
Al Qaeda: Statements and Evolving Ideology
Quote:
Declaration of Jihad:
Early 90s---In the early 1990s, Bin Laden emphasized his desire to secure the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops from Saudi Arabia at all costs.
1996---Following a period of exile in Sudan and Afghanistan in which his radical views sharpened, Bin Laden issued a declaration of jihad against the United States in 1996 that signaled his emergence as an internationally recognizable figure and offered a full account of his main critiques of an enemy he described as the “alliance of Jews, Christians, and their agents.”
Adopting the sensitive historical and religious imagery of Islamic resistance to the European Crusades, Bin Laden condemned the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, criticized the international sanctions regime on Iraq, and voiced his opposition to U.S. support for Israel.
Post 2001---Osama Bin Laden’s longstanding threats to strike the United States came to fruition on September 11, 2001, and Bin Laden and others subsequently issued several statements confirming Al Qaeda’s responsibility for the attacks on New York and Washington. Following an established pattern, Bin Laden acknowledged his support for the hijackers and repeated his claim that strikes on American targets should be viewed by Muslims and Americans as a defensively motivated response to perceived American aggression in the Islamic world. Statements attributed to Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri since 2001 have promised further attacks and sought to justify Al Qaeda’s targeting of American and British civilians by arguing that Western societies are morally corrupt, recent democratic reform and human rights initiatives are insincere or bankrupt, and American and British civilians should be held accountable for the policies of their democratically elected governments in the Middle East that Al Qaeda finds objectionable or unjust.
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Excuses starting from the Saudi situation, to that plus...sanctions on Iraq and our support for Israel, to that plus...“The West” being morally corrupt, democratic reform and human rights are insincere and bankrupt, and that all our civilians are at fault since it’s an elected government.
Of course one of the main reasons why they’d focus on the US and not other secular democracies is because we’re the largest and most influential obstacle to their “Three Foundation” ideological goals.
(same link)
Quote:
The Three Foundations. Al Qaeda’s strategic analysis and the operations of its affiliates continue to be supported by centrally planned ideological outreach activities. In a January 30, 2005 audiotape, for example, Ayman al Zawahiri identified “three foundations” of Al Qaeda’s political ideology and applied them to events in Iraq and elsewhere. The three principles were repeated in a June 2005 video message from Al Zawahiri. Al Zawahiri, who is regarded as Al Qaeda’s chief ideologue, described Al Qaeda’s core principles in sharp contrast to secular and religious reform ideologies voiced by other Muslims as well as recent U.S. support for democracy. This may signal an attempt by Al Qaeda’s leadership to renew and clearly define its goals as a basis for attracting new recruits and inspiring new affiliates. The “three foundations,” as outlined by Al Zawahiri are as follows:
1. The Quran-Based Authority to Govern.” According to Al Zawahiri, Al Qaeda supports the creation of an Islamic state governed solely by Sharia law. Secular government or “man-made” law is considered unacceptable and deemed contrary to Islamic faith.
2. “The Liberation of the Homelands.” Al Zawahiri argued that reforms and free elections will not be possible for Muslims without first establishing “the freedom of the Muslim lands and their liberation from every aggressor.” He also emphasized the importance of establishing control over the Middle East’s energy resources and described the Muslim world as “impotent and exposed to the Israeli nuclear arsenal.”
3. “The Liberation of the Human Being.” Al Zawahiri articulated a vision of a contractual social relationship between Muslims and their rulers that would permit people to choose and criticize their leaders but also demands that Muslims resist and overthrow rulers who violate Islamic laws and principles. He criticized hereditary government and identified a need “to specify the power of the Sharia based judiciary, and insure that no one can dispose of the people’s rights, except in accordance with this judiciary.”
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All in all, I think if you ask the question: “What would end the Muslim hatred of America?”....the only answer (without Islamic reform of course) is...America turns into Sharia.
They despise our secular governments and our growing secular population.
Quote:
Al-Qaeda Training Manual: "Islam does not coincide or make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it. The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun."
(Al-Qaeda Training Manual, Available At:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/...lqaida_manual/, Accessed 9/5/06)
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Quote:
Ayman al-Zawahiri: "So we must think for a long time about our next steps and how we want to attain it, and it is my humble opinion that the Jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals: The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate – over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq … The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before: the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity."
(Complete Text Of Al-Zawahiri Letter To Al-Zarqawi, 7/9/05, Available At:
http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20051011_release.htm, Accessed 9/5/06)
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