- cross-posted to:
- usnews@lemy.lol
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- usnews@lemy.lol
- world@lemmy.world
The global War on Terror was based on a mistake.
Quintupling down are we? Never change, The Atlantic.
ETA: Not sure if there’s a paywall, so just in case: https://archive.ph/68sf0
If you read the full article, it seems as if the Saudi religious establishment was infiltrated by Egyptian extremists fleeing a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood following the assassination of Sadat. Their ideology meshed with Wahhabism and Bin Laden’s religious vendetta against the United States. The Saudi state apparatus did not have effective oversight over the religious establishment and so this all happened under the House of Saud’s nose. The countries in red are (at the time) places with either US puppet regimes or some form of Arab Revolt descended, nominally secular/socialist regimes. The religious extremists pushing Islamic rule operated in these countries under various militias and terrorist groups, notably Al Qaeda, backed by the newly radicalized Saudi Wahhabi establishment, and of course, Iran.
From that perspective, the US was waging war against militias and terrorist groups with roots and support in Saudi Arabia, but the House of Saud was not considered to be complicit. The article goes on to say…
Interesting stuff, to be sure.
Bin Laden was “from” within the borders of the Saudi Arabian (Sunni) state but he was a Shiite pan-islamist and a lot of Al Quaeda’s support came from Iran, a major enemy of Saudi Arabia.
This is just to say it’s much more complicated than “Saudis did 9/11”, and maps like this grossly oversimplify things when they put Arab peoples into the types of cultural boxes westerners are used to seeing. It doesn’t apply here.