Quote:
Originally posted by Shortfuse
How so Russ? If we didn't support Saudi Arabia, how could he still have beef with the US. His earlier actions (unless I'm wrong) never indicated that he had issues withthe US. Heck he actually helped us out by draining the Soviets in Afghanistan.
What behvaviors of Muslims is Bin Laden overlooking?
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Bin Laden is primarily at war with Modernity. Not the Saudis, and not the US.
The US, more than any other nation, represents modernity. The US, more than any other nation, exports the cultural products of modernity. Bin Laden wants MTV (among other things) to no longer be available to Muslims. Even if the US did not support Saudi Arabia, there would still be MTV, and it would still be exported. That's why Bin Laden would still have a major grievance with the US.
Modernity and Western Civilization are the larger issue. Islam is a Western religion, and Arabian culture is also Western, and Bin Laden rejects this. Its important to understand that Islam is Western. It shares the same roots with Judaism and Christianity. It does not share a heritage with Budhism, Hinduism, and other Eastern religions. Its even more important to understand that Arabian culture is Western. It has far more in common with Europe, than it does with the Ming Dynasty, and it was the ideas of Arabian scholars that helped build the foundation of the European Renaissance.
Until the European Renaissance, which never really ended, every great civilization entered a period of stagnation and then relative decline. Including Islamic Arabia. They were great, and they no longer are. It was ideas from Arabian scholars that provided the beginning to much of the Renaissance. The Renaissance staged the birth of the Enlightenment in the mid-18th century. At this time, Arabia was past the point of stagnation, and well into a period of relative decline. Wahabism was born, and less than 20 years later, the first nation ever founded on ideas, the U.S., was born. The ideology that forged the U.S., more than anything else, was the Enlightenment.
The U.S. can trace part of its ideoligical lineage to Arabia, and where those common ideas failed to sustain Arabia, they helped propel the U.S. to become the most powerful nation on Earth. Make no mistake about it, Arabs are extremely jealous of the U.S., and Bin Laden is no exception. They feel robbed, even though their decline is their own fault. They, like other civilizations, became arrogant, and stagnated. The ideas of the Enlightenment don't allow for that.
The Enlightenment is the basis for Modernity, and Bin Laden hates this with every fiber of his being. He especially hates that the Saudi Royal Family embraces Modernity on the weekends, while vacationing in Europe, and then embraces Wahabism when its convenient.
Bin Laden wants a world that died hundreds of years ago. No nation is keeping that world from him more than the U.S.