itsahoot: "Well if that was the real reason why have we not went to war with Islam?
Wars like tax increases will always have justifications, the public one and the real one."
Of course, we did go to war after 9/11/2001, and normally "real reasons" are not that complicated.
Fair to say: every US war -- declared or undeclared -- was triggered by some attack and/or serious threat.
Today we may mock some of those -- "Remember the Maine", "Gulf of Tonkin", etc. -- but all at the time seemed real and sufficient for Americans to support war.
Were there other reasons?
Of course, there always are reasons, but seldom are such reasons sufficient by themselves to trigger war, something else is required, namely a serious attack or threat against Americans.
For example: President Franklin Roosevelt made no secret of his desires to help out his British allies and his personal friend, Winston Churchill, but as late as November 1941 something like 80% of Americans opposed getting sucked into yet another senseless war in Europe.
So FDR could do nothing major until Pearl Harbor and Hitler's declaration of war.
Then FDR acted as he had previously wished he could act.
Were there other "real reasons" -- for example, did Roosevelt want, as the Nazis claimed, to conquer in the name of "International Jewry"?
Well... if that was his goal, then how did 1/3 of world Jews perish by war's end, with barely a peep from FDR?
My point is: a search for such hidden "real reasons" invariably takes us down a maze of historical rabbit holes & nonsense which seldom add up to anything coherent.