It is as close as they can come to waging war.
I spent two years there as a Mormon missionary in the early 2000’s and had conversations with a fair number of both pro-Pinochet and anti-Pinochet people. I’d agree with the sentiment that it barely even registered with the younger generation.
It’s a lot less silly than comparing rocket attacks to a child’s temper tantrums.
While this thread has, so far, focused on the Middle East and adjoining regions, those were not the only Cold War era interventions.
In the Philippines, (long before the Cold War), the Muslim minority in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago have been struggling for independence for more than a century. The U.S. was the primary agent of suppression in the early 20th century. (Recall Gary Cooper fighting Moro rebels in The Real Glory or Mark Twain’s scathing description of one anti-Moro battle.) After WWII, the Muslims were offered assistance by Marxists to continue, not launch, an ongoing struggle for independence. The presence of Marxists allowed the U.S. to prop up what became the authoritarian regime of Ferdinand Marcos who continued to push anti-Muslim activity and to make no serious effort to encourage Philippine regimes since the fall of Marcos to back off from efforts at ethnic cleansing in Muslim territories.
Similarly, the presence of Marxists caused the U.S. to support increasingly authoritarian regimes in Indonesia while efforts to “modernise” the country included the suppression of Muslims. While the U.S. did not actively promote such modernising suppression (as it had in Iran and Afghanistan), it also made no effort to get the governments to rein in such suppression, leading many Indonesian Muslims to regard the U.S. as a proponent of such suppression.
Actually, bin Laden, who was a fiercely conservative Muslim, was at loggerheads with the ruling hierarchy of Saudi Arabia, whom he regarded as hypocrites and corrupt. He began with a general disdain for the U.S. for propping up the Saudi regime, then was angered when the Sauds allowed the U.S. to stage weapons on the holy land of Mecca and Medina, and finally blew his top when the Saud family allowed U.S. troops to remain in Saudi Arabia after the close of the First Gulf War.
western civilization embraces a lot of popular ideals that often fly in the face of traditional religious beliefs. That secularism is to be valued. That women and other marginalized groups have value. . .it’s not much different from the threat that “western” religions feel in their own countries. If it seems as you are not doing all that you can to live your life “as god intends” and make sure that those around you are safe from evil influences, you can be perceived as a threat to that righteous way of life.
Indeed, the support of Israel and western friendly regimes such as the Saudis and Pahlavi, is a thorn in the paw of the Islamic world, but we can’t underestimate the everyday insults that we hurl their way merely by our existence. KFC and MTV are as big a threat as the CIA.
mc
Al Qaeda wasn’t attacking the United States over fast food restaurants and cable channels. They were attacking us because of the presence of American troops in the Middle East. Notice how we weren’t attacked before 1991 (except for a brief period around 1983 when we sent troops into Lebanon).
Shooting down civilian Flight 655killing 290 passengers. Obv. the crew of the USS Vincennes were awarded medals for their bravery.
US arming of, and political support for, the invasion of Lebanon by Israel - various occasions. Americans will likely remember the US withdrawal from Lebanon after the loss of 241 Marines and others.
These two events were cornerstones in the forming of Osama bin Laden’s philosophy in relation to the USA.
It may not be widely advertised, but the U.S. has had a relatively small military presence in the Middle East since the '50s in Saudi Arabia with the United States Military Training Mission to Saudi Arabia. Even after the vast majority of U.S. troops left Saudi in 2003 following the initial invasion of Iraq, there is still a very small joint U.S. force there, probably the size of a company or two, give or take.
The U.S. has also contributed an enduring battalion-plus contingent to the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai in Egypt since the early 1980s.
Since the U.S. currently has troops (albeit pretty small numbers compared to the 1991 Gulf War or 2003 invasion of Iraq) all over the Middle East now in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, U.A.E., Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Bahrain and Al Qaeda or ISIL don’t seem to be including this as a significant reason for terrorism/jihad against the West, it seems like OBL citing it was just a pretext for all their other grievances.
Western imperialism doesn’t just exist in the meddling in regimes; it’s also a battle for the hearts and minds. If the young generations are accepting of the western non-religious, non-political ways, how long will it be until they start to think that the western religions and politics are not so evil. They are literally fighting to save their way of life. We may think that this is inevitable and how it should be, but to them it’s saying that everything they believe and the whole meaning of their life is soon to be invalid. We are interfering in more than just their politics.
from and article in The Atlantic form 1990