In 2004, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld commissioned a task force to study what causes Terrorism, and it concluded that “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies”: specifically, “American direct intervention in the Muslim world” through our “one sided support in favor of Israel”; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, “the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan” (the full report is here). Now, a new, comprehensive study from Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer, substantiates what is (a) already bleedingly obvious and (b) known to the U.S. Government for many years: namely, that the prime cause of suicide bombings is not Hatred of Our Freedoms or Inherent Violence in Islamic Culture or a Desire for Worldwide Sharia Rule by Caliphate, but rather. . . . foreign military occupations.
The bombings will continue until morale improves.
Kryptik
But but but but but but the crazy Islamics and Muslin Supremacists are all violent by nature and hate us ‘cuz we’re free! This can’t be true, we’re ‘Mericka, we’re always right, right?! RIGHT?!
NobodySpecial
This can mean only one thing.
We’re going to have to rush another couple of brigades to Afghanistan to fight off the foreign occupiers!
BGinCHI
Anything in there about whether they hated us just because of Donald Rumsfeld?
Is it too late to drop him from a great height onto a strategic target?
PeakVT
Haven’t we known this since 1998 or so? I can’t believe Rummy had to commission a report to figure it out. He must have forgotten to tell them the conclusion he wanted.
sherifffruitfly
lololol
(it’s a dark laughter, Francis)
BenA
I love living in the United States of ExxonHaliburton and look forward to wonderful future the TeaBaggers and other stupid old white people are providing for us.
cleek
hmm… i was told many times that the reasons “why?” were irrelevant, and that asking such questions was equivalent to providing The Terrorists with therapy.
Zifnab
I heard if we just occupied their nations for another six more months, all these problems would be resolved.
Bob L
So how long before Rumsfeld is denounces as a liberal shrill?
Still hilarious stuff. After the last 60 years in the Middle East these clowns needed a study to tell them this? The phrase “conservatard” comes to mind because you have to have serious emotional development problems not to realize that religion is just the excuse for outrage cause by policy.
Zifnab
@BenA:
Teabaggers are only a fraction of the population. We don’t call them the 23%ers for nothing. I’ve come to accept a certain percentage of crazy. It’s the other 28% needed to make a majority that continue to horrify me with their voting habits.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Hey! I was a research assistant for Robert Pape!
Cool.
And: Yes.
In Israel, the presumption is not that they hate us for our freedoms, but for our religion. All Palestinians are anti-Semites, you see — it’s not that they weary of our boot on their neck.
New Yorker
What are future historians going to make of early 21st century America? We’re probably the first hegemon in human history to bend over backwards and act against our own interests in order to appease a client state.
I think that’s going to be the most bizarre thing historians talk about, ahead of climate change denial or the rise of neo-fascism led by Jews (think Pam Gellar and David Horowitz).
El Cid
I’ve been told pretty clearly that the US occupied neither Iraq or Afghanistan, so this must all be wrong.
Culture of Truth
All we have to do is keep invading and occupying until all the people who hate us are eliminated.
Bubblegum Tate
@cleek:
Yeah, I remember that as well. They hate us for our freedoms and that’s that–if you start asking mamby-pamby liberal bullshit questions like, “OK, but seriously, why are they doing this?” then you suddenly became John Walker Lindh.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
But Obama’s anti-colonialism is a detriment to our continued existence as a country.
BenA
@Zifnab: Those are the other stupid old white people mentioned above. We’ll call it the coalition of “Get off my lawn!” and “Jesus loves only those people who are just like me.” ;-)
Svensker
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Really? Very cool!
Ajay
This essentially common sense and nothing surprising but it doesn’t make good TV in a nationalistic environment where every thing is about supporting the troops.
To all those supporters for the war, I have always maintained, Iraqis/Afghanis should do what you would do if someone bombed/invaded where you lived: Get rid of invaders/occupiers by any means, including taking help from the enemy. Its just a survival instinct.
Needless to say, according to patriots, I am a terrorist.
Kristine
I know you can’t control ad content, but the Goldline ad did capture my attention.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
Speaking of Glennzilla, did anyone see this:
http://twitter.com/ggreenwald/statuses/27147290505
Stefan
substantiates what is (a) already bleedingly obvious and (b) known to the U.S. Government for many years: namely, that the prime cause of suicide bombings is not Hatred of Our Freedoms or Inherent Violence in Islamic Culture or a Desire for Worldwide Sharia Rule by Caliphate, but rather. . . . foreign military occupations.
Aha! So all that’s needed for us to stop the military occupation of those countries is to kill all the people who object to our military occupation of their countries. It’s actually pretty simple.
Brighton
Payback is a b|tch. It was never confirmed for me until I read two books, each of which is recommended: “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by Mearshimer and Walt, and “Dismantling the Empire” by Chalmers Johnson.
Terrorism is a desperate reaction to capitalist imperialism, plain and simple. It is the price we pay for being wealthy, arrogant, racist and greedy. Americans are largely in the dark about how our foreign policy has served corporate interests and basically sh*t all over the developing world.
Culture of Truth
They hate us for our yellow ribbons!
Pangloss
Viet whatnow? Never heard of it!
Joe Beese
This finding would seem to cast doubt on the wisdom of Obama’s Afghanistan policy.
Southern Beale
Yes but John, do tell us the REST of the story. That’s is equally important.
We are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan not because of terrorism but because the military industrial complex needs to be fed and the collapse of the Soviet Union removed our last best excuse for a military buildup.
If there’s world peace there’s no reason for fighter jets and Blackwater private militias, now is there?
SRW1
I am surprised Cheney’s pacemaker was able to cope with the massive arrhythmia when Dick had to read that report. Was that one of the occasions when they had to take Dick to hospital for a reset?
WyldPirate
What? You mean people don’t like a bunch of foreigners on their soil busting into their homes and blowing their families and their homes up?
does this mean that Our Savior Who Shalt Not Be Criticized–President Obama–didn’t figure this blindingly obvious concept out? Unfuckingpossible!
Keep bombing those Afghanis until they love us properly, Barry!
USA! USA! We’re No. 1!
ItAintEazy
What’s funny is I read a report by Robert Pape that said the majority of the Lebanese suicide bombers were either Christian or communist/socilists.
Oh wait, NOW I see why the birthers and teabaggers think Barack Hussein Obama is both a socilist and a Muslim :^\
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@WyldPirate: But that still didn’t give OBL the right to attack civilians here. And no, it doesn’t give us the right to bomb indiscriminately.
General Stuck
The sooner we get out of Afghanistan, the sooner that country can return to peace and prosperity.
Dollared
Amazing to me that all these idiots will systemically bet the home team in all college football games, but think we can forcibly pacify a 3rd world country.
Beano Cook says it nearly every week: “Bet the home team: Russia always wins at home.”
If USC can’t pacify the spoiled children of mercenary conformists in Palo Alto, what makes us think we can become the Lords of Pashtunistan?
Dollared
There is no point for the continuing occupations other than to sell more arms and “security services.”
Everything that was ever said about the Germans and Krups is now true for us, except that we still can’t make a decent espresso machine.
El Cid
True — if we can remain in Afghanistan, it will be able to retain the peace and prosperity that certain sections of Kabul have achieved.
BenA
@Culture of Truth:
I don’t know about them, but I know I do….
:-D
WyldPirate
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Dude, this is MeriKKKa, baby! We can do whatever the fuck we want to brown people. Don’t you know they are sub-human and HAVE no rights?
How dare you criticize Our Savior Who Shalt Not Be Criticized President Obama!
Off to the Balloon juice re-education camp with your ass!
USA! USA! We’re Number 1!
Dollared
Oh yeah, and one more thing: the study was commissioned in 2004? Um, might it have better to commission the study in October 2001, before we broke it and bought it?
Oh, commissioning studies in advance only applies to supertrains and global warming.
General Stuck
I look forward to the peaceful executions in Kabul’s former national soccer stadium. For showing exposed ankles, and the reopening of the Obl fitness spas throughout the country. Ought to be a tourist boon for the local economies
El Cid
@ItAintEazy: The first Palestinian groups to use terrorism as an organized major strategy were secularists. As were the Tamil Tigers. The PLO, in addition, were secular nationalists. As were the Jewish terrorists in Irgun who attacked civilian targets including British buildings. In the Middle East, the failure of secular movements (and of course the funding of Hamas by Israeli intelligence) caused the takeover of armed and terrorist resistance by fundamentalist forces. Other movements are related to separatism, but since that’s the usual focus of attention in the Muslim world…
El Cid
I think the US needs to remain in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from taking over 80% of the nation.
Anyone who disagrees loves the Taliban and wants to have Osama bin Laden’s babies and jacks off to Buddhist statues being blown up and hates the Afghan population.
If we stay there forever this could all be prevented. [We particularly can’t ever negotiate with the Taliban either.]
Culture of Truth
I would think that it would equally obvious that what motivates murders to act ought not to be the sole driver of our foreign policy. Should we understand it, so as not to delude ourselves, sure. But let’s not put the terrorists on some sort of pedestal.
Cat
@PeakVT:
Uh, ‘We’ has humans, have known this for a few millennium. Its just the fucking morons who make foreign policy ignore it because it would interfere with them getting their War on.
And lots not forget, they are SMARTER then the other guys and can make it work this time, really, They can do it. They went to an Ivy league school after all.
Catsy
@WyldPirate:
Are you actually under the impression that this kind of sarcastic drivel is in any way persuasive to anyone? Unless, I mean, if your objective is persuade everyone that you’re a one-note douchebag who’s incapable of processing any argument more nuanced than “Obama rules” or “Obama sucks”, in which case fission mucking accomplished.
General Stuck
But maybe we could stay just enough to help manage the fitness spas, least we could do after all that has happened.
Cat
@Culture of Truth:
Maybe the point was to fucking esoteric for you. They WERENT fucking terrorists there until we FUCKING INVADED their countries, overthrow their elected officials, or support regimes that abuse their citizens.
The study wasn’t, “What Terrorists Hate”, it was “What Causes Terrorism”. I mean, unless you think they were all just sitting around dreaming of a day they could strap on a bomb if only they could find the right scarf.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@WyldPirate: The only thing a balloon juice reeducation camp would entail is a screech from Tunch and alcohol.
As for Afghanistan, I doubt there’s anyone here that’s not for getting out. The only debate is on how flat to make the mountains in the border region before we leave.
ETA: Also, this site has been dedicated to pushing back against the “oh, they’re brown people so it’s OK” meme.
New Yorker
@WyldPirate:
That straw man must be bigger than the Statue of Liberty by now, huh?
Catsy
@Culture of Truth:
I’m going to type this slowly so that you can understand.
1. Nobody is putting terrorists on a pedestal. But fuck you very much all the same.
2. Nobody is arguing that the motivations of murderers should be the sole driver of our foreign policy.
Now that we’ve dispensed with the straw that composes the vast majority of this comment, to the substantive point.
The point is that if there are aspects of our foreign policy which predictably and unavoidably generate a level of resentment and hatred against the United States sufficient to incite terrorism, we should identify 1) whether this resentment (the emotion, not the action that follows) is a reasonable reaction to how our policies affect these people or not and 2) if the benefit of those policies weighed against the backlash they provoke is in our interest.
To put it another way: if I’m driving down the street and a gangbanger randomly shoots at my car, they are responsible for the crime and its outcome. If I drive down the street in a bad part of town at 2am blasting audio of a KKK rally in a car covered with Confederate flags, the shooter is still responsible for their crime and the outcome, but it doesn’t diminish his responsibility to note that there are things I could’ve refrained from doing that might’ve avoided the incident.
WyldPirate
@Catsy:
You’re the perfect example of why I use the sarcasm. Some people here are the reverse of the Firebaggers they criticize for calling Obama out.
I’ve got my eye on you, Catsy. Just twitch with some brainless, bitch-assed, mindless defense of anything the Obama administration does. I’ll be on you like a duck on a June bug.
Until then, take a flying leap up your own ass….
Culture of Truth
I got the slow typers and ALL CAPS typers. So that helped.
Did I posit a bit of a straw man? Perhaps, but it was not directed to anyone here but the poster writing about ‘Barry’ and ‘Our Savior.’
If I had know the link was to Glenn I would not have said anything.
liberal
Face it, Cole, you’re an anti-Semite. (Just like I’m a self-hating Jew.)
WyldPirate
@Catsy:
just like I thought, you and you’re domestic example is full of shit.
Blowing up the wrong targets time after time builds fucking resentment. Going in and kicking in peoples doors causes resentment when they’re innocent. That the deaths of these people may be “collateral damage” doesn’t mean shit to those people that have to scrape the pieces of raw meat that used to be their mothers, sons or other relatives is irrelevant.
There is no need for 140K troops to be in that shit-hole called Afghanistan. It will go back to exactly what it was before we went there when we pull the troops out.
Intelligence and very surgical strikes against terrorist cells are warranted. Full blown occupations in which we butcher people via “collateral damage” earns the enmity of the relatives of the dead over there for not years, but centuries.
liberal
@Catsy:
Uh, what strategic interest of ours is furthered by our actions and policies in the ME and related places (Afgh/Pak, etc)?
We have essentially one and only one strategic interest in the ME: not necessarily to control the oil that flows from there, but rather to ensure that no single hegemon controls the oil that flows from there.
Given that, our policies in that region in the world are completely irrational.
LOL. Those examples trivialize the impact of US and Israeli actions in the ME. And Israeli actions are largely if not entirely our responsibility, because we supply them weapons, substantial per-capita economic aid, and considerable diplomatic cover (despite having no formal alliance with us).
Better trolls, please…
Paris
Every couple of years, there is a new study that shows suicide bombings to be be directly correlated to foreign occupation.
Since we keep getting the wrong answer, I think another study is necessary.
Svensker
@WyldPirate:
I don’t see what’s so wrong with what she said. We should a) identify whether our actions are causing resentment and hatred; and b) decide what the cost/benefit is — in other words, is what we’re trying to accomplish worth the blowback or not? Isn’t that a basic sane mode of action for any sentient being doing pretty much anything? Our problem in the Middle East is that we have not been allowed to have any cost/benefit discussions, since any mention of the costs of our relationship with Israel is met with screams of “anti-semitism” and then white noise.
My personal preference would be no empire at all, close all our offshore bases, bring all the troops home, have small embassies with minimal staffs in foreign lands, and stop selling weapons, but then I’m an unrepentant hippie
Zuzu's Petals
Just saw Lawrence Wright’s excellent “My Trip to Al Qaeda” and can’t recommend it highly enough.
The Pale Scot
Just to note this study is not available at it’s government link,
http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2004-09-strategic-communication.pdf
Interesting
It is hosted at the federation of American scientists.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/10/12/terrorism/index.html
Lots of discussion about the report, and the gov. decides to remove it.
Mike in NC
More likely that Rummy had a buddy who needed a nice juicy government contract.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
What the hell for? What kind of knuckle-dragging imbecile doesn’t know that “American direct intervention in the Muslim world” is the problem? No wonder our country is broke, we commission task forces to investigate the most blindingly obvious shit.
Catsy
@WyldPirate:
Wait, what?
So let me get this straight. Some people here are “the reverse of the Firebaggers”, which I presume means you regard their support for Obama as being as rigidly inflexible as the Firebaggers’ purity trolling. Therefore, you must employ sarcasm and hyperbole of a sort that never changes the mind of anyone over the age of nine.
And because I ridiculed you for using ridiculous hyperbole to inappropriately dismiss any observation of nuance that does not redound to Obama’s benefit, I am therefore an Obot.
I stand in awe of your grasp of language and argument.
This superficially resembles the English langauge, but is devoid of meaningful semantic content. And it leaves me with only one question: at what formative age did your brain damage occur?
Catsy
@WyldPirate:
@liberal:
Did someone pour something into the water supply today? Is there some virus making its way around the internets that is selectively replacing coherent arguments with utter drivel? Or are WyldPirate and liberal here simply a pair of the dumbest, most illiterate trolls ever to inflict their stupidity on the comments section here?
I have re-read my comment and these two responses several times now. And I feel dumber after every time I’ve had to try to wrap my brain around what in these two responses logically follows in any way from what I wrote.
Let’s recap. Culture of Truth wrote the following:
This was a bullshit argument that was nothing but straw from top to bottom. It’s pretty much indistinguishable from the crap that Republicans have thrown at liberals for decades whenever we suggest that maybe the things we do have something to do with why people try to kill us. I replied with:
Put simply: if we are doing things that piss off other people in the world enough to make them want to kill us, we should think about whether or not it’s in our interest to do those things.
Yet somehow, the single brain cell shared by liberal and WyldPirate divided long enough to puzzle its way through my response and interpret it as American exceptionalism, rather than the exact fucking opposite.
I mean, did you two clowns even bother to read more than one word in ten of what you were responding to? Did I use too many big words for you to accurately parse its meaning? Or did you run it back and forth through Google Translate first or something?