Good man, you’re learning to listen.
The Shah of Iran was a dictator whose security force, SAVAK, was internationally notorious for torture and murder of domestic opposition. The Shah pursued a pro-West stance that alienated his people, while spending prodigal amounts of money on parties and luxury while the people of Iran barely subsisted.
Gobear already told you the answer. The Iranians hated the Shah, and the Shah was put in place by the US in 1953 when the CIA overthrew the previous government. Since the Shah was backed by the US, (you could probably argue that he was a US puppet,) it made sense for them to take American hostages instead of French ones.
That’s the basic problem here, Bill. Something important has happened, and you’re trying to understand it. But you don’t know any of the relevant facts, because you haven’t studied history, and you don’t even watch the news, so you don’t know about big current issues like the Durban conference. And the result is that when you try to come to grips with the WTC attack, you have to muse that maybe they don’t like us because they’re just crazy, or because we’re too nice, or because we’re too rich, and so on. But the answer is not too hard, if you know the facts.
-Ben
Tapswiller, ha! Another reason to legalize drugs. We can fly the Crypts or the Bloods out there, or the Mafia, to set up the drug trade in Afghanistan. The money will be flowing!
Oh shit… the Taliban and their faithful follower bin Laden do not approve of drugs. That is a naughty thing, and heaven knows that no one with free will should choose such a path and suffer the judgment of Allah when the Taliban can simply oppress or kill people they disagree with right now.
Ah, well. Everyone seems to have some political agenda they want to sneak in, and I thought I’d try to angle in the legalize drugs bit. Rats. 
Not to quibble, but what western stance is that again? That’s not the west the westerners live in.
Yes, it is. Because we installed the Shah after the CIA helped overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh, the Shah was a staunch ally of the US.
It might be prudent to realize that one of the things that The Shah was hated for so much was for attempting to modernize Iran along western lines, something that was anathma to the very conservative Islamic factions in Iran. When we realized that the groundswell of opposition to The Shah was reachiing a boiling point, the U.S. sent representatives to Paris to talk with Khomeini. They reported back that he was a pious holy man, and would be a good option for stabilizing the situation in Iran. Acting on this, we helped engineer the overthrow of The Shah. Oooops.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t one of the big reasons the CIA supported the Shaw of Iran and overthrew Mohammed Mossadegh, was because Mossadegh wanted to nationalize Iran’s oil supply? E.g., Mohammed was going to cut off American access to cheap oil, so the USA tossed him out and stuck the Shaw in power to protect our own interests.
Geez, this sounds like a plausible reason for why some Muslems don’t like the United States. Makes more sense than “We help so much,” anyway…
So, suppose we deliver food and stuff to the Afghan refugees fleeing our supposed attack. Will that win us points?
That would be “Crips”
Wildest Bill, I think your point has some validity, particularly in the case of Osama bin Laden. It was the sight of American’s defiling Saudi soil with their presence during America’s aid to the region and in particular to Kuwait that suddenly got his knickers in a twist. It could probably be stated that the recent attack is a direct consequence of America coming to the aid of the country of his birth.
However, as much as America has pissed off a lot of people, it is still mostly appreciated throughout the world and I would suspect that a free airplane ticket and work visa would cause a lot of those who espouse hatred towards America to drop their stones and get on the next plane to New York.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but
it seems to me that is has been over 22 years since the fall of the Shah.
In 1967 we were completely over any resentment towards Germany,Japan and Italy. In fact we were going nuts buying two wheel rice machines . I suggest that the reason for the lingering resentment is confined to American support for the state of Israel.
This is a painful oversimplification. The US, prior to the conference, said “tone down the rhetoric, or we won’t send Colin Powell”. When they didn’t tone down the rhetoric, we didn’t send Colin Powell. The US contingent spent several days there saying “tone down the rhetoric, or we’ll walk.” When they didn’t tone down the rhetoric, we walked. Then the European delegations started saying “tone down the rhetoric, or we walk.” At that point, if they walked, the conference would lose all semblence of worldwide participation, so they toned down the rhetoric on the last day of the conference, which was actually an extra day granted to try to come up with a compromise.
What else could the US have done? Hung in there, so that Zionism could be equated with racism, then say “we should have walked”?
My apologies- perhaps I should have chosen an example I had studied more carefully.
I think the basic point is the same, though. You don’t need to go fishing for weird psychological explanations in which people hate America for being too nice. The fact is that America has foreign-policy positions which the terrorists disagree with, and that disagreement is what motivates their hatred.
-Ben
Ben,
I have another theory now actually I have heard it on the radio both Christian and Secular. They hate us because we our prosperous and free. And they are poor and not free. And they(their weak govt) train their people to hate us so their govt will not be under scrunity from the people in those countries. So their plan was to make us look evil in eyes of their subjects so they can stay in control.
So I wonder if taking out all of their govt’s and giving the people freedom, is what needs to be done to rectify this situation.
Yep. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to just “get over it,” especially when a Big Mean Superpower wants to flex its muscle and threaten to strongarm their nation into submission.
Don’t forget our goading Iraq into waging war on Iran, and our subsequent shunning of Iraq, and our continued attacks on/sanctions against Iraq, and our continued military presence in Saudi Arabia, and our using Afghanis as ground fodder in the fight against the Soviets, and our subsequent abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviets left, and several other manipulative US policies in the middle east over the last 30 or 40 years.
Let’s face it, we’ve given them a lot of reasons to be mad at us…
Bill, would you PLEASE listen for the love of CHEESE!!!
We have taken some FREE governments that people have VOTED for out in the past, and replaced them with the oppressive governments. WHY would they trust us?
Trust me, their governments don’t NEED to manufacture reasons. If you were living in Chile during the past 20 some years, I can imagine you’d hate the US as well.
Why don’t we just do it right for a change?
Bill, you should be automatically suspicious of any explanation that starts “we’re good and pure, and they’re not. That’s why they hate us.” The US isn’t the Evil Empire, but that doesn’t mean that other nations don’t have plausible reasons to hate the US.
Bill,
Define “right.”
Right by our standards?
Right by the standards of Islam?
Right by some other standard?
Come now Bill. We both know that the real reason they hate us is that we have bigger cocks.