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ThePrussian comments on If you can see the box, you can open the box - Less Wrong Discussion
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"No doubt they disapprove of many aspects of the American lifestyle, but mostly they are interested in signalling to their fellow Muslims the purity of their opposition to US power in the middle east."
But why do they object to US power? They object, in their own words, to US power because it dilutes the purity of Islam. They are not struggling for national liberation, but for theocracy. Their explicit goal is the establishment of a vast theocractic empire - the attack on America was a part of that, to rally the faithful to their cause. Take Palestine, for example - Al Qaeda doesn't even think Palestine should exist, except as a province of the Caliphate.
What is "meddling in local affairs" in this context? According to what they say, it is as much American pop culture and the spread of "decadence" (liberalism) as it is the support of certain tin-pot tyrants.
That isn't to say there aren't objectionable US policies. But please don't confuse why you might object to a US policy with why an Islamic fanatic might object to it.
Overthrowing Muslim governments (including democratically elected governments), massive military, logistical, and even direct participation in Saddam Hussein's attack on Iran, invading and occupying various countries, etc. No, I don't believe US pop culture is a major reason they attack the US.
You don't... but others do. Dinesh D'Souza has written a book detailing the "root causes" argument, but with a twist - the quotations and other evidence he amasses are from a socially conservative perspective. That is, he makes exactly the same, fully backed up "root causes" argument, but differs on the root causes in question.
Again, I am trying to make the point that what you find obvious isn't at all what others find obvious. People change radically across time and space.
Eh? If you mean the operation Praying Mantis, it was a response to the US ship hitting an Iranian mine, and near the end of war anyway.