Have you ever heard that there are people in Saudi Arabia who feel that people who don’t ascribe to their religion and practices must be driven out of the area??

Have you ever been to parts of Texas?

They can resent any number of things. Some resentments might be well-founded. Some may not. The stuff that Al Qaeda puts out is far from well-founded.

One more time, maybe I’ll type it slow so you can read it slow.

US policy alienates most people in the region for the two reasons specified above. Very few of those so alienated will take action, they will just stew like we do.

But those who take no action might tolerate those who have more violent ambitions to the extent of whole communities providing safety to them.

Violence is the top of the iceberg, and the only reason we see the top is that there is something holding up the vast bulk underwater. That something is generalized resentment for the conduct of the US in the region.

I’d associate myself with Ward Churchill’s analysis of this, a link is more than I can do justice to in a post:

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html

The point remains that only the most chickenshit of enemies will collapse into tears like a schoolgirl when 0.001 % of its population dies in a retributive attack. Most empires that spew violence around the globe would suck it in , man it up , and just deal with the cost of living. But not this one, just as Bush I almost broke down in tears when the Soviet Union fell, the “national security” apparatus needs a violent opponent the same way that a junkie needs junk.

Being told that they were concerned with our presence in Saudi Arabia does not equate to saying anything near that they resented our presence because it reinforces the misery of the populace.
That doesn’t work.
Have you ever heard that there are people in Saudi Arabia who feel that people who don’t ascribe to their religion and practices must be driven out of the area??
Have you heard that foreigners have foreign ways and that they corrupt?
That foreigners have left governments that don’t accord with Islamic law?

They can resent any number of things. Some resentments might be well-founded. Some may not. The stuff that Al Qaeda puts out is far from well-founded.

Yeah, we surely did that.

What’s that got to do with Al Qaeda?

If we are to believe what we are told by US intelligence, the people who attacked the US in 2001 were concerned about the US presence in places like Saudi Arabia during Bush I’s war. The basis for popular support for such attacks would rest on a broader resentment for US policy and its consequences on populations in the region.

People around the world feel the same when their kids die, nothing religious about it. When you kill many of their kids, they tend to fight back, as they should. The solution to that is to not kill more of their kids, rather to stop killing their kids.

The US need do no more than cut off military aid to Israel and abandon the petroleum aspects of the “national security” doctrine as pertains to SW Asia and the broader Islamic crescent.

Yeah, we surely did that.

What’s that got to do with Al Qaeda?
They don’t give a shit about political legitimacy except as it fits their religious doctrine. They don’t kill Americans to free people from oppression. They kill to impose their own brand of it.

That is part of what created the political legitimacy where populations would support forces capable of asymmetrical attacks.

All Obama is doing in Af-Pak is fighting the symptoms, kicking that can down the road using hundreds of billions in borrowed money.

I don’t know about Suharto. I’ll defer on that one.

Which petrodictatorship did we establish?

Shah, Suharto, Hussein, Saud…