The Attack came out of the blue. But the hatred behind it did not. When the Ayatollah Khomenei called America the Great Satan it seemed like laughable if frightening rhetoric, a generation on we know that some take the phrase literally.
In a wide arc of territory from North Africa to Pakistan, in the narrow streets and bazaars, people have met the enemy, and it is us. Why us, some Americans ask in innocence as we continue to count our dead not knowing that in the conflict between the Israeli’s and the Palestinians, we are seen as Israel’s friend and hence an enemy. In the Gulf region, we are seen not as the liberators of Kuwait but as the perpetuators of sanctions against the innocent people of Iraq, and in the mind of prime suspect Osama Bin Laden and his sympathizers we are seen as the occupiers of Saudi Arabia, home of the holy sites of Islam: Mecca and Medina.
Guests:
Cameron Barr, Middle East Correspondent at the Christian Science Monitor
Dr. Marc Gopin, PhD, Assoc. Professor of International Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University
Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland
and Larry GoodsonAssociate Professor of International Studies, Bentley College, and author of “Afghanistan’s Endless War”.