They hate us for our freedom....

I am going to puke if I hear this one more time. It is a wholly inaccurate statement that too many people who don't know any better have bought into. No disrespect here, but it amounts to nothing less than Bubba patriotism.

Let's just think about that statement for a second. Can you think of anyone who truly likes to live under the rule of dictatorship? I can just imagine a group of Arabs, sitting around drinking chai and puffing on a hookah: Damn those Americans!!!! They are free, get to drink alcohol, and their women walk around in skimpy clothes. They get to make choices for themselves and wear blue jeans. All we get is women in burkas, a police state, and a religion that requires us to pray 15 times a day. Fuck it, let's kill 'em.

For some reason, I find this unrealistic.

The truth is far more complicated than any sound bite could ever articulate. The most simple explanation is that they hate us because we have been meddling in their affairs for the last 60 years. After WWII, the Western Imperial powers redrew all of the politcal boundries of the region, forcing tribal groups that hate each other to now function as a single nation. As part of this "redistricting" effort, they carved out a little spot for Israel.

Then, the Western nations adopted a policy of standing up monarchs and dictators in these countries that would bend over backwards to help Western companies extract their only natural resources. In this scenerio, the people in power got rich and the remaining populace was relegated to poverty.

Eventually, our pet governments began to fall and the new governments had ideas other than allowing the status quo to continue at their countries' expense. The Western powers punished these new, uncooperative governments with economic sanctions and trade embargos. We supported neighboring countries in wars with these uncooperative countries.

Then came Gulf War I. After Saddam invaded Kuwait, the U.S. came to the rescue. At the request of the House of Saud, we placed troops in Saudi Arabia to prevent Iraq from invading, and then pushed Saddam out of Kuwait. In pushing back Iraq, the U.S. pelted southern Iraq with depleted uranium shells which has contributed to an exponential increase in cancer patients in the country. We then continued to have troops in several countries throughout the region, much to the dismay of the populace. No country likes to be occupied.

Of course, there is also the religious element to consider. I think that this aspect is over emphasized.

In summary, we have told them what there political boundries are, what country they belong to, we take their lone natural resource, we prop up repressive governments, we wage war against them when our favored governments fall, our troops occupy their countries, and our economic policies prevent them from entering the modern world. All things considered, I might hate us too.

Something else that scares the pants off of me is that our elected officials might actually believe that the statement is the truth. How many of our elected officials have spent time in the Middle East without a compliment of security and staff in tow? In the situations that surround there travel, they only get to see what they are shown, much like what happens when the company you work for hosts high profile visiters. If our elected officials are not aware of the history of the Middle East and are not aware of the culture, they are apt to create policy that will offend the people of that part of the world, not help.