Peter and Miriam, I am certified in Islamic jural. What occurred on
9-11 is not by any manner justified in Shariah. Quite to the opposite,
it's actually outlawed to murder innocent civilians, even if they
entered combative zones. Imam Malik, one of the four prominent heads
of jural schools, he is a scholar of Hadith and he is a juristic
cleric articulates that if a woman is found in the battlefield, she is
to be fled from even if she is armed. Nevertheless, the US has entered
into an unjust war with the Muslim world. What have they achieved so
far in Iraq? Nothing more than sectarianism, civil wars and emerging
fringe elements such as Da'ish and others.
On 11/30/18, peter altschul <paltschul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Legitimate drievances? Very likely. But killing 3000 people
doesn't make friends. I think OBL tried to sucker us into a war
- and he was successful.
Best, Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date sent: Fri, 30 Nov 2018 09:31:01 -0500
Subject: [blind-democracy] What if Osama bin Laden Had Legitimate
Grievances?
What if Osama bin Laden Had Legitimate Grievances?
Iraqi security forces patrol Basra, Iraq, on Sept. 8, a day
after protesters
in the southern city stormed the Iranian consulate and torched
government
buildings in violence that sparked alarm across a conflict-weary
country.
(Nabil al-Jurani / AP)
You're not supposed to utter these words, but what the heck:
Osama bin Laden
had a point. No, his grievances, as well as those of his
followers and
sympathizers, didn't excuse the mass murder of 9/11-not by a long
shot.
After all, I am a native New Yorker whose family and neighborhood
were
directly touched by the horror of those inexcusable attacks.
Still, more
than 17 years after the attacks on the Pentagon and twin towers,
it's worth
reflecting on bin Laden's motives and discussing the stark fact
that the
United States government has made no moves to address his gripes.
Now is as good a time as any. The U.S. military remains mired
in wars across
the Greater Middle East that have now entered their 18th year.
The cost:
$5.9 trillion, 7,000 dead American soldiers, at least 480,000
locals killed
and 21 million refugees created. The outcome: more instability,
more
violence, more global terror attacks and a U.S. reputation
ruined for at
least a generation in the Islamic world.
Need proof? Consider the regular polling that indicates that the
U.S. is
considered the greatest threat to world peace. Not China,
Russia, Iran or
even North Korea. The United States of America.
Why, exactly, is the U.S. so unpopular, from West Africa to
South Asia? This
can be explained in part by the mere presence-sustained, at
that-of U.S.
troops in the region. As a historian, I can assure you that
folks don't
usually take well to being occupied. Nevertheless, it's more
than that. And
here's the rub: Washington, unwilling to even consider the
grievances bin
Laden and his acolytes clearly communicated, has instead doubled
down on
militarism in the region-thereby turning al-Qaida's fringe
complaints into a
mainstream sense of injustice throughout the Muslim world.
Let's review the three core grievances in bin Laden's 1996
fatwa-essentially
a declaration of war-against the U.S., and then look over
Washington's
contemporary policies on the issues:
1.Bin Laden objected to the presence of U.S. bases in Saudi
Arabia
specifically and across the region more generally, due to their
proximity to
the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Furthermore, bin Laden
criticized the
U.S. backing of Saudi Arabia's despotic royal regime.
But rather than pull its troops "offshore," the U.S. military
has expanded
its empire of bases, both in the Mideast and throughout the
world. Despite
the slaughter in Yemen and the murder of a Washington Post
journalist,
Washington still inflexibly backs the Saudi monarchy. The U.S.
has even
negotiated record arms contracts with the kingdom, to the tune of
$110
billion. Clearly, Washington has only doubled down on this
front.
2.The al-Qaida chief lamented the starvation blockade that the
West-led by
Washington-imposed on Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq after the
1991 Gulf
War. Make no mistake: Saddam was no friend of bin Laden-in fact,
they were
mortal enemies. But the well-reported deaths of some 500,000
Iraqi children,
victims of the sanctions during that period, are what motivated
bin Laden's
concern. The blockade was so hard and its civilian toll so
gruesome that the
United Nations aid chief, Denis Halliday, resigned in protest in
1998.
Optically, the U.S. government response came across as both
coarse and
callous. When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked in
a "60
Minutes" interview in 1996 whether the price of a half-million
dead children
was worth the benefits of the sanctions, she cold-heartedly
replied, "I
think this is a very hard choice, but the price-we think the
price is worth
it."
Today, in addition to the unwarranted 2003 U.S. invasion of
Iraq, which
caused at least another 200,000 civilian casualties, the U.S. is
complicit
in a new blockade, this one imposed by Washington's Saudi allies
in Yemen.
Recent reports indicate that some 85,000 Yemeni children have
already
starved to death in the 3-year-old war on the poorest Arab
country.
Undeterred, the U.S. continues to provide munitions,
intelligence and
in-flight refueling to the Saudi military. This veritable war
crime has
galvanized an increasing anti-American regional public just as
intensely as
the 1990's sanctions on Iraq once did.
3.Bin Laden, like many global Muslims, felt sympathy for the
generations-long plight of the occupied Palestinians and abhorred
America's
one-sided support for Israel's military and governing apparatus.
The U.S.
has been almost alone in its willingness to flout international
law, U.N.
resolutions and a basic sense of humanity in its backing of
Israel since
1948.
Here again, nothing has changed. Washington has simply doubled
down. Israel
remains the principal recipient of U.S. military aid, with
almost no strings
attached. U.S. media and Washington policymakers rarely mention
the
slaughter of mostly unarmed Palestinian demonstrators protesting
along the
Gaza fence line in the past eight months. The results have been
striking:
5,800 wounded and at least 180 killed since March. American
mainstream media
may not take much note of this, but guess who does? A couple of
million
Muslim citizens worldwide. In fact, the ongoing protests kicked
off partly
in response to President Trump's near unilateral decision to move
the U.S.
Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that essentially
announced that
in American eyes, the Holy City belongs to the Jews alone.
The reasons behind American intransigence and obtuseness in
Mideast affairs
should come as no surprise. The U.S. is a nation built on a
millenarian,
exceptionalist ideology and has long been driven by a mission to
spread its
message across the globe. A populace-and government-infused with
these ideas
is unlikely to demonstrate the humility to take a proverbial look
in the
mirror and admit fault. This became especially unlikely in the
immediate
aftermath of 9/11, when passions reached a fever pitch and
chauvinistic
nationalism became the name of the game. Even then, however,
credible voices
questioned America's rush to war, including scholars such as Noam
Chomsky
and Robert Fisk, and even comedians like Bill Maher.
Seventeen years into the nation's longest war, there are plenty
of crucial
reasons to review bin Laden's grievances, consider his arguments
and show
the strength of character to acquiesce on certain points. This
is sobriety,
not surrender. After all, self-awareness is a sign of strength
and maturity
in nations, as well as in individuals.
After years of counterproductive U.S. policies and Mideast
interventions,
the nation is left with a stark choice: admit error and alter
policy, or
wage an indefinite worldwide war on a significant portion of the
Islamic
population. The former option would lessen violence and
ultimately lead to a
safer homeland, but it would require confronting an uncomfortable
truth that
most Americans simply can't face: Bin Laden was a monster, but
that doesn't
mean he was wrong on all fronts.
Maj. Danny Sjursen
Maj. Danny Sjursen is a U.S. Army officer and former history
