The Red and Black

Issue date: 10/6/08 Section: Opinions

ZAID JILANI

The Phi Kappa literary society recently hosted a debate about the question, "was U.S. foreign policy the primary cause of Sept. 11?"

I would like to thank them for opening a discussion on this topic. It is sorely needed.

I say that because I think most people in this country still don't understand why the tragedy happened.

I was unable to attend the debate, but this is what I would've said in response to the question:

Yes, U.S. foreign policy is responsible for provoking the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and our policies continue to contribute to terrorism.

Even Osama bin Laden admitted this in his video explaining his motives.

He cited America's support for Israeli oppression of Palestinians and backing of corrupt Muslim dictatorships as the motivation for his terrorism; he dismissed the notion that he attacked America because we have Brittany Spears music videos or the First Amendment.

He said if al-Qaida hates freedom, it would've attacked Sweden.

More than 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks. Their deaths were tragic and wrong in every way.

But were the deaths of 5,000 children every month in Iraq from 1991 to 2003 due to daily air strikes and sanctions placed on that country by our government any less tragic?

Was it any less wrong when our Central Intelligence Agency overthrew Iran's democratically elected leader in 1953 and imposed a vicious dictator on the country who went on to massacre thousands of people?

What about when our Treasury bankrolled Saddam Hussein's vicious, unprovoked war against Iran in the 1980s?

After Sept. 11, a million Iranians held a candlelight vigil to denounce the attacks; they pledged their support in fighting al-Qaida.

We should have used this opportunity to make peace with these people.

Instead, last year the leaders of the supposedly anti-war Democratic Congress handed George Bush $400 million to conduct a covert war against Iran.

From Uzbekistan, where political prisoners are boiled alive, to Saudi Arabia, where rape victims are whipped, our government has overlooked human rights abuses and provided monetary and military aid to any despot willing to give us preferencial oil contracts.

In the Palestinian territories, the Israeli government is currently maintaining an embargo barring food and medicine from the population, which is a war crime according to treaties Israel has signed.

Washington has given full diplomatic and military support for this operation.

Even the supposedly dovish Barack Obama has failed to fundamentally denounce our brutal foreign policy toward Muslims.

He calls the Iraq war a "distraction."

Is that the best word he can use to describe an illegal war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people?

What must Iraqis think when they hear this?

I'm not trying to rationalize terrorism.

But I am saying that as long as we continue to be what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., called us so many years ago - the "greatest purveyors of violence in the world" - there will continue to be a base of terrorist recruits.

Muslim children watching their loved ones killed by our firepower from Karachi, Pakistan, to Baghdad, Iraq, will dream of growing up and taking revenge.

We'll respond in kind, and the cycle of violence will continue.

The only way out is to subscribe to the old Biblical adage and love our Muslim neighbors as ourselves.

- Zaid Jilani is a junior from Kennesaw majoring in international affairs.

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