“To many, if not most, of us something was seriously awry with the Arab Middle East. The downtrodden people there had been brutally oppressed by despots and fundamentalists for centuries. That must have explained why al-Qaeda rose up. If only we could liberate them, they would be hugely grateful and choose our ways just as all people naturally would. No more rape rooms and homosexuals being thrown off roofs.
Obviously, we were mistaken. We didn’t reckon with the overweening power of Islam and tribalism, nor with the hatred of us. But the original impulse was not to steal oil. It was actually idealistic”
As big a line of BS as has ever came off the pen of any ‘journalist’ or writer.
It was empire building in the service of the New World Order, doing things we had no business doing, to people who hadn’t done anything to us, to enrich one-world neocon enabled mega-corporations. It was a waste of blood and treasure then just as anything we do over there now is (outside of giving aid to Israel, the only democracy and from whom we do get intelligence).
That is not why al Qaeda rose up. The muslim world, particularly the Arab muslim world, saw itself, sees itself, falling woefully behind in standard of living, in technology, in just about every twenty-first century benchmark. And they're right - in just seventy years the Israelis have far surpassed them. And the South Koreans have risen from the ashes and have a thriving nation, as just two examples. The Muslim Brotherhood and by extension al Qaeda sell the idea that this is because they have not been sufficiently faithful to the prophet (piss be upon him) and allah. Hence their turn to radical fundamentalism.