For God's Sake, They Don't Hate Our Freedom!

I don't know who came up with that gem, but it has traveled back and forth across the American psyche so many times it has become gospel.

Muslim Terrorists Hate Our Freedom.

I mean seriously, a 19-year devote muslim living in Baghdad is blowing himself and a school-load worth of children off this planet because someone, far off in the United States, is enjoying an abstract concept like freedom. Oh yes, I want to fight and die because Jennifer Thompson in Long Island, New York is allowed to watch MTV. Oh, you person I have and never will meet, I hate your ability to travel freely throughout your territorial boundries so much that I will march and chant "Death to Israel".

It is absurd no matter how you look at it and is among the most blatant propaganda since we declared Saddam Hussein to be the next Hitler. Yeah, that level of rhetoric worked out well.

Muslims Terrorists do not hate freedom or liberty or puppies or apple pie. They may not be fond of Western culture or morals, but that is also not why they are lining up to die. Muslim Terrorists hate the way the Western nations and particularly the United States are interfering in the Muslim world.

Period. End of sentence. No further explanation required.

Now whether or not the West should be interfering in the Muslim world or even whether we have a choice in the matter is another question. I am not a proponent of packing up our diplomatic bags and going home. But that is where the hate comes from.

The U.S. created, armed and continues to support Israel.
The U.S. props up multiple repressive "friendly" regimes, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt.
The U.S. continually plays one Muslim nation against another, with Iraq vs. Iran being among the bloodier examples.
The U.S. attempts to extract the maximum amount of oil from the region, putting money into the pockets of an elite few.

And this is all pre-Iraq invasion, a completely bald-faced attempt to impose U.S. control on an Arab country.

You can add to all that the general (and quite accurate) sense that the United States thinks of everyone in the Muslim countries as second class citizens (of the world), and you can begin to get a notion of why a vocal minority would, in fact, hate us.

We disrespect them while at the same time constantly interfere in their lives. How would you think of that sort of person? Particularly if they make things worse 75% of the time (I may be being generous) and seem to be getting more belligerant and more controlling.

Using the Terrorists Hate Freedom propaganda is not helping us solve this problem. How do you fight that? Give them Freedom? Take their Freedom? Hide our Freedom? I think we need to publicly address the grievances, real and false, the Muslim world has with our policy towards the region, where they live. It is not giving in to terrorists to address problems that make the majority of Muslims unhappy, any more than it is giving in to inner city criminals to address the urban decay issues that led to their creation. In general, terrorism is a crime and terrorists are criminals and that is how they should be dealt with. You can't win a war on terrorism any more than you can win a war on crime. Or poverty. Or any other abstract concept one could name.

Like Freedom.