Onhwy61, I didn't think about that but it definitely sounds like a real possiblity. I'm sure people like Bin Laden would like nothing better to do than to make us look weak in the eyes of the world. Specifically, the Arab World and our Arab allies. I heard a young Arab man say he was glad 9/11 happened because the US finally got a punch in the nose. He was from an Arab country friendly to the US, I forgot which one, but although he admires our culture and people, he is sick of our policy in the Middle East. I've seen this echoed in interviews with young Arab college students from countries that are US allies. This is a very tricky and confusing dynamic.
Bin Laden being exiled from Saudi Arabia might have something to do with him wanting to stir the pot in his ex-homeland. Frankly, I'm more fearful of guys like Mullah Mohammed Omar the ex-head of the Taliban and Ayman Al-Zawahiri who's most likely the real guiding force behind Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
I've seen interviews with people of varying Arab nations who are more afraid of their own government than they are of the US or radicals within the Muslim world. As benign as Saudi Arabia often appears because they're to an extent our ally, I wonder how much this applies to the ruling Saudis and their people. It's hard to imagine this would be the case in Kuwait or Bahrain.
History has shown that politics and who you choose as an ally plays an important part in the survival of your country or kingdom. It's an interesting paradox for the Saudis to have the US as an ally which affords them a great deal of security from their hostile neighbors. But on the flip side having infidel military bases on Muslim soil also causes great consternation. Being a ruler is no fun at all, because you can never make everyone happy. All you can do is to try to survive.
As for the hijackers I may be mistaken, but I thought guys like Mohammed Atta and the others were mostly Egyptian. The curious thing about guys like Atta and some of the other Palestinian suicide bombers is that they weren't radical until they went abroad to study in Europe. There they were recruited by radical clerics and brainwashed into making themselves human missiles.
I've asked my Dad about this kind of thing since he was a pilot in the Japanese Imperial Navy during WWII and how is it that people can be mass mobilized for a cause like this. He and some buddies volunteered for the Naval academy when they were still in high school. At 16 and 17 they were ready to die for Japan. I've heard all these stories how Japanese mothers sent off their boys telling them they should die for the Emperor. It's funny because my Grandmother told my Dad not to do anything stupid and to come back alive. Did I have the one sane WWII Japanese Granny? Hahah. Curiously, my Dad really doesn't have an answer for his youthful zealousness, saying maybe it was just that. But he also doesn't think Japan was wrong either. Have any of my fellow Audiogoners ever wondered what was on the minds of young Germans and Japanese during this period?
There are so many things that contributed to 9/11. And the sad thing is that it might have been avoided if we had just acted more responsibly in the Middle East.
