Why They Hate Us

In class on Tuesday the opinion was advanced that the current wave of Islamic terrorism has been caused by the phenomenon of globalization. With Western and, more specifically, American, culture and values spreading across the world, local traditions are disrupted and traditional culture is eclipsed. Combined with poverty, ineffective government and the nostalgia for the past that accompanies the absence of hope for the future, people are turned to violence and terrorism against what they see as the root cause of their oppression and despair, the United States. This largely explains why al-Qaeda engineered the 9/11 attacks on the U.S..
I believe that globalization is certainly a contributing factor to the recruitment process and longevity of Islamic terrorism groups, particularly al-Qaeda and its affiliates. However, I also believe that there is a far more direct cause for the current wave of terrorism – the U.S military presence in Saudi Arabia. I do not believe that due to this we ought to remove our forces from Saudi Arabia and the surrounding areas immediately, or even necessarily over the long term – doing so would not necessarily satisfy the injuries (real or imagined) we have already inflicted. However, I think it is useful to understand why our presence in Saudi Arabia has led to the current wave of Islamic terrorism, and in so doing be able to better assess the long-term threat Islamic terrorism poses to us.
Our military presence in Saudi Arabia has provoked the current wave of terrorism because it has created what Walt calls a “perception of threat.” The United States has historically been safe from counter-balancing alliances and violence against it because it has been geographically so far removed from everyone else. Thus, though we may be perceived as the source of globalization and cultural imperialism (which was the case far before the end of the Cold War), before 9/11 there had never been an attack on the American homeland. Indeed, the only places where the U.S. had had significant attacks on its military from terrorism groups (also not a new phenomenon) were where we had a significant military presence – Germany and Lebanon. It was in Germany that modern-day terrorism got its roots (in a Western country, no less) and in Lebanon where the U.S. suffered the devastating attacks on the U.S. embassy and marine barracks.
It is difficult to motivate and organize a large-scale terrorist organization unless there is a direct, visible, and pressing threat that can be held up as the physical source of oppression. Globalization certainly has its discontents, but does that kind of discontent motivate one to create sleeper cells that are dormant for years before their members finally engage in a murderous suicide attack? My answer to this question is no – there needs to be a direct presence, usually military, that can be the real motivation for large-scale terrorism and martyrdom operations. Otherwise, how many people would willingly kill themselves for an abstract idea whose achievement would have no physical impact on their lives? Only Palestinians, who daily face a perceived oppressor, have been able to sustain long-term suicide terrorism operations.
The U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia dates to the Gulf War in 1991, and was sustained afterward to serve as a base for IAEA monitoring of Saddam’s WMD programs and patrols of the No-Fly Zone. Our bases used to be located in downtown Riyadh – a very visible source of oppression for Osama Bin-Laden and his organization and an easy excuse for violence. No one knows what al-Qaeda’s true motivations are and what goals they believe they can realistically achieve – fame, power, glory, wealth? – but we can know what they used as their original source of hatred for the West – the large-scale presence of U.S.-led forces in Bin-Laden’s homeland. After all, al-Qaeda’s operations do date from the mid-1990’s.