Although I realize that Chapter 8 of “The Looming Tower” by Lawrence Wright is titled “Paradise” that certainly isn’t the case for the United States. The events of this chapter would forever taint the United States. Today, I’ll be talking about the rise of Al-Qaeda against the US and how that came to be.
First, I’ll be talking about how bin Laden started seeing the US as an enemy. Bin Laden right before converting Al-Qaeda into becoming hostile towards the US had returned to Sudan with his family from the war in Afghanistan. Sudan was quite impoverished at the time (it still is) but bin Laden decided to start construction projects there and made it a much better place to live. During this time, he had a great and peaceful life with his family and believe it or not, had intentions of withdrawing from Al-Qaeda. However, he saw too much wrong and difference in cultures in other countries and started to become more and more involved again. The US suddenly started trying to occupy Arab nations that of course bin laden liked but bin laden decided to step in and the entirety of Al-Qaeda declared that the US was trying to rid the ways of Islam. This would be the event that started the creation of a dark hole in US history.
Now, I’ll be talking about what Al-Qaeda and bin laden thought about the US trying to occupy US nations. Al-Qaeda was slowly becoming stronger with the leadership of bin laden and his financial support. As I mentioned, the US started to try to occupy Arab nations and so, bin Laden and the people of Al-Qaeda saw the US as a huge threat and decided to turn on them. It is said that bin Laden decided that the US was a huge threat in 1982. In 1983, a suicide bomber attacked US militant troops and workers in Lebanon and that caused the US to withdraw from the area. This led bin Laden, who was said to be very intelligent, to think “Oh the US are actually weak, they really just left with that?” Other attacks were orchestrated but America was unaware and bin Laden had taken the credit for it. When people started questioning Al-Qaeda’s ways, a leader in Al-Qaeda made two authorizations in which Al-Qaeda could attack America, and they could kill innocents if they dared oppose their ways. This is the rise of Al-Qaeda.
Surprising right? To think that Al-Qaeda became a real terrorist organization after the US tried to occupy Arab nations. Now this poses a question? Aren’t terrorist organizations that are against the US mostly created by the US? So they next time we criticize a terrorist organization we need to ask that because we very well might be standing on the answer of that question ourselves without even realizing it.