In early November, 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested for plotting to explode several tons of gunpowder beneath the British Parliament building. When asked his motives - which me made no secret of - Fawkes claimed that he wanted to kill King James I and destroy Parliament for (among other things) their persecution of Catholics, as well as to be revenged on the Scottish nobles for their betrayal of the Scottish people they had left behind. He also said that, on the day the gunpowerd was to be ignited, he fully intended to stay behind and make sure everything worked out, assuring his own death.In modern parlance, Fawkes would undoubtably be a terrorist, and a suicide bomber at that. Yet no one says he was inspired by hatred of the Protestant way of life; it was the Protestant hatred of the Catholics that did it for him. Simply because his means were terroristic doesn't make his grievances invalid. Even today, some Catholics continue to celebrate Guy Fawkes for his efforts to strike back against their persecution.
In a video released on Augist 4th, al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman Zawahiri stated that "Your salvation will only come in your withdrawal from our land, in stopping the theft of our oil and resources, and in stopping your support for the corrupt and corrupting leaders."
Well, few Middle East scholars would disagree that the West in general and the U.S. in particular exert a negative influence on Middle Eastern society. The lapdog regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait etc. are among the most corrupt and repressive in the world, and exist solely on U.S. support.
Of course, they are not bin Laden's lands, or al-Qaeda's, or any one group of people's; bin Laden cannot possibly speak for all Muslims or all residents of the Middle East. He and his cohorts offer no positive alternative, but only (to borrow Tariq Ali's phrase) "a nightmare Pax Talibana".
It is not 'appeasement' to do something simply because bin Laden says he supports some aspects of it in theory. Besides, allowing Arabic self-rule without foreign coercion is the last thing he wants; his fundamentalist message would be powerless against a genuinely free and democratic system. For example: before the American invasion of Afghanistan, the radical Islamist parties never received more than 5% or 6% of the vote in Pakistan. After the invasion, their support shot up. Why? Because the US-backed Pakistani government supressed all other criticism of their government or ours, cutting off any chance of a secular, democratic movement taking hold. But they couldn't totally silence the far-right clerics because Musharaff (along with many Arabic leaders) had an understanding that the clerics would use religion to keep the commoners in line while the dictators used the army to keep the elites in line. Now, of course, the fundamentalists have gotten out of control. Who could've seen that coming?
If the US wished, it could make its puppet governments do practically anything in the way of electoral reform or allowing personal freedom. This, however, is viewed as a bad idea. Give people a little freedom, and all they want is more. That's the last thing we want to happen in the Middle East.
If the Middle East is going to be prosperous and democratic, it will not be under the control of America. Partly because so much of the secular, democratic sentiment in the region is tied up with Marxism, and partly because nobody likes being ordered around by gas-guzzlers across the sea. That is a fact we will simply have to deal with if we ever want peace and stability to reign in that region.
Four hundred years hence, I doubt that Osama bin Laden will have become a Muslim folk hero (or, at least, I hope not). Let's not make him into one.
