It is a word that would be pretty fucking stupid and irresponsible to be throwing about in regards to US operations in the Middle East.
Don’t know why Muslims still have such a grudge about the Crusades, considering that they won in the end.
I think the Byzantines might be sensitive about the Crusades, too.
Indeed, especially since the Third Crusade ignored the Muslims and attacked, captured, and sacked Constantinope…(not yet Istanbul).
Tell that to the three thousand folks who unexpectedly died on a sunny Tuesday morning fifteen years ago.
What the fuck does that have to do with anything? 9/11 had zero to do with the Kuwait invasion and even less to do with Iraq or Hussein. Care to explain your logic, if any exists?
That might easily have occurred regardless of the First Gulf War.
Whether it was a “war” or not is irrelevant. You said:
One of the reasons given by Bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks was the presence of US military bases in Saudi Arabia, which were established during the first Gulf War.
Terrorists like bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization had/have numerous reasons to attack America. If it weren’t for US bases in Saudi Arabia, they could have still cited any of a dozen other reasons: “US support of Israel” being among them.
In this case, however, there is plenty of evidence that bin Laden was stating his actual motivation. bin Laden was already “at war” with the house of Saud for his perception of their lack of true devotion to Islam. Throughout the 1990s, most of his rants were directed against the Saudi government for tolerating the presence of unbelievers on the sacred lands that included Mecca and Medina. His claim was that even if Saudi Arabia tolerated the U.S. presence during the First Gulf War, the Westerners should have been evicted as soon as it ended.*
It was only after the success of the WTC/Pentagon attacks that he began to mention such issues as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, (that he had pretty much ignored prior to that time), and other issues in the hope of gaining more recruits.
*[ETA: I vaguely recall that he actually argued with the Saudi government that the “believers legion” or “Arab legion” (I forget the name) that he had raised in Afghanistan could defend Saudi land against Hussein without even inviting the U.S. to come help.)
Abraham started all this, when he sent off Ishmael … what a rat thing to do …
Should have called him. “Ishmael!”
Well, four days since the troll last signed on. Guess he went back to the echo chamber.
Can you reasonably argue that the '03 invasion of Iraq, subsequent fiasco and rise of Da’esh would have been likely if not for Desert Storm (which arose because of Ronnie’s support for Saddam)? Would young Bush have been able to gin up an excuse to go in there as readily?
I mean how do you count a mess that the US caused, which led to an even bigger mess, as a net positive?
Sure.
He didn’t have a real excuse in the first place.
Remedial summer-school classes have started.
Call me, Ishmael. Moochy, moochy.
“I’m not joking, and quit calling me Ishmael!”
Probably isn’t even housebroken.