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Not sure why someone would believe a fighter when they say why they fight. It's not like propaganda is unique to western countries or something. It's everywhere. It's a tool that creates effects, you think he's above using it or something?
This assessment of al Qaeda's goals I have only ever heard from Western propaganda and the popular consciousness, not any serious attempt to analyse them. While bin Laden's statements could be lies (more relevant than whether they're propaganda, which can be true), I think it makes more sense to take his word for his own motivations than what amounts to nothing more than the popular Western view of his motivations, filtered through years of our own media. Of course there may be some serious analysis of his goals somewhere I haven't read - feel free to point me at it. It should come along with some reason not to believe his own explanation though.
I'm skeptical that it exists though, because this understanding of his goals essentially denies that he has any goals beyond hurting America: it's "they hate us because we are free." But bin Laden laid out perfectly clearly that his hatred of America developed from seeing Muslims killed in attacks which were enabled by American intervention - something which I see no reason to cast doubt on, and as such see no reason to doubt his explanation.
It makes zero sense though. No people on Earth would just go "oh welp, guess we better go home now."
Do we seem hesitant to kill people to you?
How does it not make sense? One way of achieving your aims is making it very costly for the people blocking those aims to continue doing so.
Conflicts often end in a negotiated peace where neither side has been conclusively defeated, often indeed amounting to "welp, we'd better go home now." The cost to the US military in Vietnam turned public opinion against the war until it became politically unsustainable.
More broadly, this attitude inevitably leads to post-hoc cynicism, where you look at someone who failed to achieve their stated goals, conclude in hindsight that they made no sense and that they therefore couldn't ever possibly have believed sincerely in them.
If it really made zero sense, it would make zero sense to use as propaganda. The fact that it makes enough sense that you believe bin Laden even used it to convince others means you accept that people could believe it. It's not unreasonable to think that bin Laden was smarter than the people following him, but you haven't done the work to show he couldn't believe it.
Propaganda is a quantity game, it can make anywhere from no sense to complete sense, because different messages will be received differently by different people.
The Sept 11th attack was not a piece of some greater war. It was a declaration to an unsuspecting people, very few of us had any expectation that something like that would happen. I can understand when the Japanese made the mistake in 1941, but its much less understandable now. It's certainly no Vietnam, which didn't end until we had lost large numbers for many years. Comparing that to an expectation that a surprise attack on our civilians would have similar effects is simply ridiculous.
America is a box of hornets. It was still, and got kicked. No other possibility was even remotely likely to anybody that knows anything about us. He couldn't have been that totally and completely ignorant.
To the contrary, it is far more likely he was an intelligent adversary that researched and understood his opponents, and struck effectively. I simply find that far more plausible than him being a fool that wanted a quicker way to get him and his organization to heaven, and otherwise failed miserably.
edit for some sloppy wording
So, the only reason you have for not believing bin Laden's stated goals is that, you assert, it was too obviously impossible to achieve them.
You haven't presented any reason he instead must have wanted to cause the USA to sacrifice domestic freedoms as a motivation. What about all other possible motivations? Why that one? It seems like it doesn't do bin Laden any good for that to happen. Instead it seems like it's how an American, unable to understand the world through any lens except an American one, might decide bin Laden's motivations must be viewed.
I have at no time asserted it was impossible to drive the US from the Middle East. To the contrary, sowing domestic strife and global overreaction was an excellent first step towards accomplishing that in the long run.
All I'm granting him is an assumption of rationality and long term thinking. I'm not claiming any truth or facts or anything, I cannot read a dead man's mind. But I can look at what happened and draw conclusions with the aid of hindsight, and strongly prefer that over simply trusting his word.
Are you unable to see how we have harmed ourselves since then? How about how Israel is harming themselves right now?
This is just an invitation to commit the post-hoc fallacy.
But you said:
That's an assertion/claim as to what those goals in fact were. And you still haven't found any reason that they included "make the US pass laws which restricted its own civil liberties" other than the fact that that's what eventually happened.
You don't understand how people can discuss possibilities without believing in them 100%? The world must be a very confusing place. I guess that makes more sense why you just believe a terrorist though, you have to believe someone. Something has to be true, right?
People are complicated, so we discuss possibilities, alternatives, etc and think in terms of likelihood. This is fairly common in areas where we cannot scientifically prove something, like when examining motivations.
Truths belong in holy books. I have opinions, and I am discussing them. I admit I do use fairly strong hyperbole sometimes.
Like I said, the idea that America would just give up after losing a couple skyscrapers is just pants-on-head stupid, so I feel pretty comfortable swinging with some strong language.
edit: Alright, I edited my old post to add an imo, so it was clearer I was not trying to give historical fact.
Just because you couch it in terms of opinion doesn't mean it's not a claim about truth; you're just not saying you're certain of it. I wouldn't expect certainty - I would just expect that whatever you do believe you believe for a reason, and that you would be able to articulate that reason, which you aren't doing.
With your successive replies it sounds like you're more comfortable defending the position that "bin Laden's stated goals are unbelievable" than "bin Laden's goal was to make the USA pass liberty-reducing legislation." It's OK if, on reflection, you think the latter isn't really supported by the facts and that's why you're not defending it or giving a reason for it.
You're ignoring most of my arguments. Why the focus on Patriot Act, when it was one of three factors I listed? Why do you keep trying to say that I'm saying his stated goals were unbelievable, when I've repeatedly said I'm debating the specifics of how he expected to accomplish them? It's not a "what", it's a "how".
I've repeatedly expressed my reasonings. I cannot help it if you don't tell me the specific parts you disagree with or don't understand. I won't just keep repeating myself.
Because it's the one that I see repeated most often by others and the one find most doubtful.
Because we started with a disagreement over what his goals were and you seem to have maintained your side of that disagreement? If you say "it was X, Y and Z" and I say, "no, it was A and B" and you then say "how on earth could what he did have achieved A" you're not actually arguing about "how" you're expressing your skepticism that it was A by casting doubt on how realistic it was.
You haven't expressed a reason to believe that bin Laden wanted the USA to pass a law like the PATRIOT Act. You've made implications that you maybe don't actually believe it that strongly, but not gone so far as to say that you don't believe it, and you've talked about the other things you believe, but you're quite reticent to talk about that one.
I don't mind leaving aside the other stuff because this one, I think, is more egregious.
At least you're willing to be honest, I respect that. I'll point out though, that the Patriot Act in isolation requires me to explain at length how a surveillance state harms American citizens, which in turn harms America. This would be a tangent. It's far easier to deal with in conjunction with American diplomatic reputation, debt, and casualties as well, wouldn't you agree? Taken all together, I think it becomes almost impossible to not see how grievous harm has been done, and continues to be.
One more time. I have at no time asserted that his stated goal was impossible or unachievable. Quit putting words in my mouth. I'm talking about how they get accomplished, yes? I've said several times now that they are possible, just not in any way quickly or straightforwardly, which I assert he likely knew, due to how painfully obvious it is and was, to anyone who picks up the briefest of US history books. Our involvement in WW1 and 2 was definitive and for very clear reason. I don't know how someone could assert that he's paying attention to Vietnam but not WW2.
You really want to get into a sidetrack about how a surveillance state harms the citizens of a democracy in a way that makes them prefer isolationism? I think it's fairly straightforward if you acknowledge our voting system, but I can explain if you wish. It's common enough sentiment in privacy circles. Importantly, it lasts until we do away with it, where war exhaustion due to casualties fades fairly quickly, historically speaking. Knowing our government, we will probably not do away with it for quite some time, though that's more an educated guess.
edit: The main reason I don't want to get into the privacy discussion, incidentally, is because we're on Lemmy, where a very large number of privacy-oriented types hang out. So it strikes me as unnecessary and a little silly, despite your questioning of it. But ask one last time and I will provide some resources for you, that's fine.
I agree that the PATRIOT act has harmed American citizens, but I think that's a completely Western-centric way of thinking that likely wouldn't even cross the mind of a radical Islamist. I don't think it can be said to have harmed the USA in the way that would further any of bin Laden's goals that we can infer from his words or otherwise. If anything, bin Laden was an authoritarian himself and so would be more likely to believe that state surveillance is beneficial to the wellbeing of the state.
Seems to me you're still saying 9/11 couldn't have achieved it.
I want you to lay out why you think the PATRIOT act or something like it was likely foreseen by bin Laden and why he thought it would likely further his goals. You're hinting at a discussion from the perspective of "privacy-oriented types" rather than from bin Laden's perspective. There's to be done here than just argue, "bin Laden wanted to harm America, and eroding privacy harms America, therefore bin Laden did 9/11 to erode privacy." Many consequences of 9/11 might further or hinder bin Laden's goals, but IMO we're talking about more than that.
Ah, I see. So, I don't believe Bin Laden foresaw the Patriot Act in any way shape or form. From his perspective specifically, it'd be about sowing as much fear and discomfort as possible. I doubt he personally was able to predict the exact form that fear and discomfort would take, but it doesn't really matter. Surveillance harms us exactly because it creates more fear and discomfort. The specifics are an irrelevant detail though, not something he has influence over or needs to care about. Not mission-critical information.
The fear and discomfort in turn leads to more radical behavior, it helps drive folks crazy, to speak colloquially.
This is the real key that can and probably eventually will drive us from the Middle East. Without it, and the emotional feeling of disgust it creates within us, it would've taken a mammoth amount of casualties and/or economic damage to accomplish that. We have a long history of being unbelievably stubborn. Additionally, we weren't yet energy independent back then, before our fracking boom, so being there was an additional economic necessity he would've felt needed to be overcome.
Look at it this way: He wanted to create more Islamophobia. So we would leave all the Muslims alone, eventually, since genociding them isn't an option for decent folk, which we (mostly) want to be. Something we now have to wrestle with concerning Israeli actions.
It's basically how terrorism works as a political and military tool, how it attempts to accomplish its intended goals. It's not usually so successful, though. But I would say this time, fear was successfully sown, and domestic harmony effectively destroyed. We haven't really been politically functional since then, though that's my opinion, again.
OK, looks like I misunderstood what you were saying. Fair enough.
It was literally his manifesto and single demand for two decades.
I don't disagree. Just disagree that his method was as simple and straightforward as people here seem to think, just believing what he's spoon feeding them 100%. He was sophisticated, a leader. Not some simpleton.
As if Americans would just give him what he wants for knocking down a couple skyscrapers. Have you even seen our culture? We shoot each other in our own streets, much less foreign attackers. How people think we could just forego a chance at revenge is just utterly, hilariously wrong in every way.
He believed we would leave because he grew up in a world of Western countries being driven out by anti colonial violence. It's not that complicated. He wasn't a political science guy, or an anthropologist. He was a radicalized construction engineer.
I don't think you need to be an anthropologist to figure out that attacking someone's civilians nearly guarantees counterattack. We still needed the oil out of the region back then to boot.
Shockingly it doesn't. You're also not taking into account his radicalization. Which allows for a lot of irrational beliefs.
That is actually a fair criticism. I simply don't think it's as strong an influence over strategic thinking. In any decent thinker anyway.