I got into a debate with a very Catholic friend of mine regarding the reasons the muslim terrorists attacked us last year.  I think they attacked us because we are a christian country.  Am I wrong?  Does anyone have any info (koran qoutes, bin laden qoutes) as to why they hate us?

Thanks in advance
Keving67

Sounds good to me.

Count the bomb craters.

Yeah, thats another reason.

Keving67

When I am faced with a swarm of angry hornets who want to sting me I don't care why they want to do it.  I only know that I need to eradicate each and every one of them because they will continue to come after me until I kill them all!

They hate us because they are a religion of hate.  Its that simple.  

They are not worth the debate, its like asking why cockroaches survived the bug bomb you set off.  You just go about trying to kill them in another way before their disease kills you.

Including what has already been mentioned, there is probably some jealousy involved.  The fact is, the positive contributions to this world made by all islamic nations that have ever existed can almost be counted on one hand (e.g., they preserved some of the knowledge from classical Greece and Rome).  I am hard-pressed to come up with one positive thing they have done in the last thousand years.  Meanwhile, in the last thousand years, the west has gone from swords, longboats, and town criers to intercontinental missiles, spaceships, and the internet.  If I were in their position I would feel inadequate too.


Good post, [b]Jarhead_22[/b].

Roger on Jarheads good reply. Add this to the mix also. Islam is still locked into the notion that conversion of nonbelievers thru physical intimidation and death is an appropriate way to spread their religion.  There was a time that Christianity, at least parts of the Christian world, believed the same. Christianity grew and matured beyond that notion 600-700 years ago.  Islam never has.

I promise you, Islam has never forgotten that they made it all the way to the gates of Vienna, before their crusade to turn Europe Muslim was stopped.  What's happening now, with the rise of groups like Al Queda, is simply a return to that behavior.

What's ironic is that the Christian West made all of it possible.  If the internal combustion engine had never been invented, they'd still be grubbing out a living on lands not worth a thing; living in tents and eating boiled sheep guts.  Thre's a lesson there somewhere. Wish I could figure out what it is. [:\]

[George Bush] they are evil doers- we are good. [/George Bush]

Very informative article I thought.....addressing your question....and written by a guy with serious credentials.

[b] At one level the answer is obvious. It is difficult if not impossible to be strong and successful and to be loved by those who are neither the one nor the other. The same kind of envious rancor can sometimes be seen in Europe, where attitudes to the United States are often distorted by the feeling of having been overtaken, surpassed and in a sense superseded by the upstart society in the West. This feeling, with far deeper roots and greater intensity, affects attitudes in the Muslim world toward the Western world or, as they would put it, the infidel countries and societies that now dominate the world. Most Muslims, unlike most Americans, have an intense historical awareness and see current events in a much deeper and broader perspective than we normally do. And what they see is, for them, profoundly tragic. For many centuries Islam was the greatest civilization on Earth--the richest, the most powerful, the most creative in every significant field of human endeavor. Its armies, its teachers and its traders were advancing on every front in Asia, in Africa, in Europe, bringing, as they saw it, civilization and religion to the infidel barbarians who lived beyond the Muslim frontier.

        And then everything changed, and Muslims, instead of invading and dominating Christendom, were invaded and dominated by Christian powers. The resulting frustration and anger at what seemed to them a reversal of both natural and divine law have been growing for centuries, and have reached a climax in our own time. These feelings find expression in many places where Muslims and non-Muslims meet and clash--in Bosnia and Kosovo, Chechnya, Israel and Palestine, Sudan, Kashmir, and the Philippines, among others. The prime target of the resulting anger is, inevitably, the United States, now the unchallenged, if not unquestioned, leader of what we like to call the free world and what others variously define as the West, Christendom and the world of the unbelievers.

        For a long time politicians in Arab and some other Third World countries were able to achieve at least some of their purposes by playing the rival outside powers against one another--France against Britain, the Axis against the Allies, the Soviet Union against the United States. The actors changed, but the scenario remained much the same. And then, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, came a truly radical change. Now, for the first time, there is only one superpower, dominant, however unwillingly, in the world: the United States.

        Some Arab leaders try frantically to find a substitute for the Soviet Union as patron and protector of anti-American causes and have evoked a limited and for the most part ineffectual response in some quarters in Europe. Others, notably Osama bin Laden, took a different view. As they saw it--and their view does not lack plausibility--it was they who, by the holy war they waged in Afghanistan, brought about the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union. In their perspective, they had dealt with one of the infidel superpowers--the more determined, the more ruthless, the more dangerous of the two. Dealing with the soft and pampered United States would, so it seemed, be a much easier task.

        The reasons for hatred are known and historically attested; the hatred has been growing steadily for many years and has been intensified by the conduct of some of the rulers whom we call friends and allies and whom their own people see and resent as American puppets. A more important question, less frequently asked, is the reason for the contempt with which they regard us. The basic reason for this contempt is what they perceive as the rampant immorality and degeneracy of the American way-- contemptible but also dangerous, because of its corrupting influence on Muslim societies. What did the Ayatollah Khomeini mean when he repeatedly called America the "Great Satan"? The answer is clear. Satan is not an invader, an imperialist, an exploiter. He is a tempter, a seducer, who, in the words of the Koran, "whispers in the hearts of men." An example of this perception and the resulting attitude may be seen in a recent Arabic newspaper article in defense of polygamy. The writer argues as follows: In Christianity and more generally in the Western world, polygamy is outlawed. But this is contrary to human nature and needs. For 10 days a month during menstruation and for longer periods during pregnancy, a woman is not available. In the monogamous West, the deficiency is made up by promiscuity, prostitution and adultery; in Islam, by polygamy. Surely this, the writer argues, providing respectability for the woman and legitimacy for her children, is the better of the two. This makes good sense, if one accepts the writer's view of the relations between men and women.

        Another aspect of this contempt is expressed again and again in the statements of bin Laden and others like him. The refrain is always the same. Because of their depraved and self-indulgent way of life, Americans have become soft and cannot take casualties. And then they repeat the same litany--Vietnam, the Marines in Beirut, Somalia. Hit them and they will run. More recent attacks confirmed this judgment in their eyes--the attack on the World Trade Center in New York in February 1993, with six killed and more than a thousand injured; the attack on the American liaison mission in Riyadh in November 1995, with seven Americans killed; the attack on the military living quarters in Khobar in Saudi Arabia in June 1996, with 19 American soldiers killed and many more wounded; the embassies in East Africa in 1998; the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000, with 17 sailors killed -- all those brought only angry but empty words and, at most, a few misdirected missiles. The conclusion bin Laden and others drew was that the United States had become feeble and frightened and incapable of responding. The crimes of Sept. 11 were the result of this perception and were intended to be the opening salvo of a large-scale campaign to force Americans and their allies out of Arabia and the rest of the Muslim world, to overthrow the corrupt tyrants America supports, and to prepare the ground for the final world struggle.

        The immediate and effective response against their bases in Afghanistan must have come as a serious shock to the terrorist organizations and compelled some revision of their earlier assessment of American weakness and demoralization. We must make sure that they are not misled, by the unfamiliar processes of a democratic society, to return to that earlier misjudgment. [/b]

     (The writer is professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies
      at Princeton University. His most recent book is "What Went
      Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response")

M-4, good article, got a link??

Actually I don't, it was emailed to me by my mom.

What a bargain! See everyone, Islam was tolerant in the past and will be to us as well. [;)]

Maybe you can break it down into simpler terms and say that different civilizations have always fought their neighbors from the beginning of time.  History is a continuous tale of the rise and fall of great civilizations.  War is a part of our very nature, regardless of what this current crop of social statists wants you to believe.  The question is not why does someone hate us, it's why are we not killing our enemies with all the power we possess?  We put too much stock into world opinion of us.  Better to have them fear and respect us, than love us.  

M4 touched on it.  Dr. Bernard Lewis has written two outstanding books on the subject:

-[b]What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response[/b]

-[b]The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years[/b]

Plus, he wrote a great piece in the Atlantic Monthly in 1990 entitled:  [b]The Roots of Muslim Rage.[/b]  It is important to remember that this very prescient paper was written in 1990.  He really explained why they hate us so much in that piece.  Here is a hyperlink to the article:  [url]http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm[/url]  Read it.  It was a real eye opener for me.

After reading ths material, I know why most of those people want us dead.  I highly recommend reading Dr. Lewis' works.  It increased my resolve to beat these guys, and the article and books clarify why this war is going to be a long one.

Well...for those of you who don't want to read the books I mentioned...the Jarhead pretty much summed it up in a nutshell.

Please pass his words along to all of your liberal friends who still think we should wait for the UN inspectors.

Anybody remember those silly morons gazing up at the alien spaceships just before they got fried in the movie "Independence Day"?.  Sheeple...just like our liberals today.

If the Muslims get a nuke...we're going to eat it.  It's just that simple.

Jarhead 22 is right on, and I would like to add,

1. Our support of Israel, (which they hate)

2. The fact that American culture is rapidly infiltrating every country.

3. The Muslim religion is by it's nature, violent, and confrontational.

A good Christian is taught to turn the other cheek, and love thy neighbor.

A good Muslim is taught to convert, kill, or subjugate the nonbeliever.

Muslim hate goes all the way back to the Crusades. Then Bush makes a speech and uses the term "Crusaders" several times. The original Crusaders should have wiped them off the face of the earth when they had the chance.

That is a common misconception, but the fact is, islamic hatred goes back beyond that--to the invention of islam itself in the 600's AD.  Muslims conquered their way across north africa and up through spain in less than 100 years (check for info about the Battle of Tours at Poitters, 732AD...it happened in France).  The crusades happened several hundred years later.

The point is, muslims started this, muslims continued it, and now muslims are trying to finish it by destroying us.  It is us or them (at their insistence).

At the risk of sounding flippant, my answer would be "Who the fuck cares WHY they hate us, or even IF they hate us? All I know is that they ATTACKED us, and in so doing gave up any rights to live they may have had. Period."

Simplistic perhaps, but sometimes simplicity has its virtues.

They hate me because I'm handsome and I can dance like Fred Astair, even with a full combat load.

Imagine you are a Muslim Arab living in the West Bank.  The Israelis are shelling a house a few streets over from yours and they are deploying ground troops as well.  They are using M-16s (donated by USA), mortars(donated by USA), tanks (donated by USA), not to mention the ungodly amounts of $$$ we give to Israel every year.  One of the mortars hits your house and kills your wife and baby.  Instant hatred.  Not that he didn't hate us already for the stuff I just mentioned.

Now don't get me wrong.  I wouldn't care if they BOTH ceased to exist!

Just food for thought.

Balming

Why do muslims hate us?

It is simple, because we are not muslim!

If you are not muslim then you are the enemy.

Plane and simple!

What makes there hate even more easier to express, and be justifiable in America is because of the Red Diaper Dopper Baby lawyers,and organizations such as the ACLU, and any other human and civil rights organizations!

For the people who did not pay attention in class... the Crusades was not an attack on Moslems by Christians.  It was a counter-attack.  And remember, news did not travel as quickly in those days as it does now.

The Moslems slaughtered their way through the Holy Lands, through Turkey, and into Eastern Europe.  The Crusades was a counter-attack to stop the Moslem invasion, and drive them back, as well as to re-take the Holy Lands.

Yes, they are a religion of hate and murder.

Now, why do they hate us?  They see that they are still living as they did 2000 years ago.  They produce almost nothing, hardly enough to sustain themselves.  If if was not for Western goods trickling in, they would still be riding donkeys and herding goats... no, wait a minute, they still do that.

And their leaders do not want them to know it is their religion and culture that keeps them so poor.  So, they convince these ignorant goat-herders that the reason they are so poor, and the West so rich, is that we steal from them.  They could have the good life if only we ceased to exist.

It is not OUR intolerance of them, it is their intolerance of us that is the problem.

Well, we in the West were willing to live and let live.  They have set the rules of engagement, it is them or us.  Well, we should follow that rule, and make sure it is US that comes out on top.

Jarhead22 , you so eloquently stated the truth .

But the only truth the EVIL DOERS understand is a bullet in their head !!!!




[usa][usa][usa]

Why do muslims hate us?

Sorry, I have to admit to this--I killed allah and dragged him behind my truck.

Who gives a shit?