Why we had troops in their pithole of a country is beyond me.
Energy independence is the only answer to this stupidity.
"Energy independence is the only answer to this stupidity."
Al Qaeda will not cease wanting to do us in just because we no longer buy Saudi oil, which I've never heard as a stated reason for their wanting to attack us to begin with. And we have nearly all our troops out of Saudi Arabia now since we no longer need to patrol a no fly zone in Iraq (a fringe benefit of having overthrown Saddam). Yet Al Qaeda still wants to do us harm.
Let's not fall prey to the battered wives syndrome interpretation of why Al qaeda hit us which says "They had to hit us, we made them mad!" No, they hit us because of who we are, what we believe, what we represent and because of what we stand in the way of their doing. Make no mistake about that.
This had nothing to do with the Saudis. Richard Minitier's books have shown that OBL had been planning and attempting to carry out attacks against the U.S. BEFORE the Gulf War, and has never really cared about Saudi Arabia per se. He needed a devil to focus on, and we were it. (See his book "Disinformation")
That is only partially true. The people who did this HATE us because of our culture (or perceived lack of it) and who we are. Whether we buy their oil is irrelevant, they will still try to harm us.
It would be nice, though, to be energy independent so that would be one less factor to have to consider when dealing with some of those islamofacist animals.