by James Glaser
May 1, 2002

This is what our President thinks happens over in the Middle East. A bunch of young Arab men are out in the desert, riding camels, checking out the oil fields, and all of a sudden one of them decides that they should like form a rock band or maybe have a terrorist cell. "I always hated Democracy and those Americans are so free it makes me mad, so lets go over there, kill ourselves and take as many Americans with us as we can" This is President Bush's theory, about why terrorists attacked us.

Here is a little thing for you right and left "wingers" to think about. George Bush is President, but this is still America and everyone is "Even Steven," so George's ideas are no more right than, say mine. George was elected to be President, not the Ruler of the United States. He has his ideas on what causes terrorism, but if other people think he is wrong, that doesn't make them unpatriotic. There are those in Washington, much like in the Soviet Union of the last seventy five years, that think any who disagree with the government line, should be sent to a very cold place. Hey, I'm in Minnesota now.

George was on TV saying that poverty breeds terrorism. I think George is wrong again. Half of the world lives in poverty with over two billion people living on less than two dollars a day. If George was right, terrorism would have been the major cause of death through out history. Really I doubt if George even understands what it is to be poor. George ran on the promise to help poor Americans that were picking prescription drugs over food because they didn't have the money for both. If he understood their plight he would have tried to help them by now. I am a "poor American," but I can't understand what it is like to be poor in a third world country.

What George fails to see, is that the terrorists that attacked America were not poor. Most of them came from at least middle class families, if not rich families. Most of them were smart enough to get into flight schools, taught in a language different than their own. Only a very small percentage of Americans could do that. Osama bin Laden is not poor and those who finance terrorism are not poor, but it is easier for George to think that dirt poor people attacked us.

No one in Washington even wants to think about why a group of young men, that from all appearances, had a pretty good future ahead of them, would get together, form a mass suicide pack, and take out as many Americans as they could. Those in power want it to be a easy answer, "they were poor." Yes those in power want a explanation that is easy to understand and doesn't threaten what they have been doing.

Palestinian terrorists are easy to figure out. If you are on the other side from Israel or Washington, they are "freedom fighters," remember, it is all semantics. Think about this, you are a thirty three year old Palestine living in a United Nations refugee camp. You were born there, your dad was born there, and now you have a three year old son that was born there. Your whole life you have lived on charity. You have no chance to ever own a house or maybe even have a job, and you look at your son and you know that to gain any respect or future for him, you only have one option and that is to become a terrorist for your countries future. I would pick that as I am sure you would. No hope of a future and no self respect and a terrorist is made.

Those that attacked America do not fit into that easy answer that Palestinians do. What is happening in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where they came from, that would cause these young people to forfeit their lives to attack us? Could it be that these men saw the abject hopelessness that so many in the Middle East live in and could they no longer bear their governments, (with America's backing), continued abuse, of their people? Many Americans through out our history have taken themselves out of the elite class to fight for the rights of the poor. Many rich Americans have fought for racial equality, voting rights, and equal education for all Americans, even though their station in life might have been more secure in leaving the status quo alone. Still those in Washington cannot believe that those terrorist could have had noble and valid reasons for their attack.

I personally think anyone that would kill thousands of innocent people is insane, but my question is, what drove these nineteen young men to this act? What would it take to get you to become a suicide terrorist? I am not blaming America for the attack, but I would sure like to know what we did to make those nineteen believe that we deserved it. I don't buy the hate freedom line George uses, nor the poverty line floated now. This was not one single act by America as this was not a tit for tat attack and the fact that it took years to set up tells me that there is a long term hatred for us. Many in Washington believe that it is wrong to even wonder what precipitated this attack. I believe that to not investigate the reasons for the September 11 attack and to not correct what those terrorist thought and hey they could of very well been wrong in their grievance with us, but to not know what they were insanely mad at us for, in just plain foolish.

We now know that people will commit suicide to get at us and for Washington to blow off any investigation into the reasons for this attack is in my way of thinking just as insane as those terrorists were. This inaction will only lead to another attack.