United States
See also: Motivations of the September 11 attacksIdentified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the U. S. military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the US enforcement of sanctions against Iraq. Bin Laden had a complicated relationship with the United States, as he was supported by the United States in the Soviet-Afghan war. However, he first called for jihad against the United States in 1996. This call solely focused on US troops in Saudi Arabia; Bin Laden loathed their presence and wanted them removed in a "rain of bullets".
Bin Laden's hatred and disdain for the US were also manifested while he lived in Sudan. There he told Al-Qaeda fighters-in-training:
| “ | America appeared so mighty ... but it was actually weak and cowardly. Look at Vietnam, look at Lebanon. Whenever soldiers start coming home in body bags, Americans panic and retreat. Such a country needs only to be confronted with two or three sharp blows, then it will flee in panic, as it always has. ... It cannot stand against warriors of faith who do not fear death. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Beliefs And Ideology Of Osama Bin Laden
Famous quotes related to united states:
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941Ma date that will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody’s image. It was the land of the unexpected, of unbounded hope, of ideals, of quest for an unknown perfection. It is all the more unfitting that we should offer ourselves in images. And all the more fitting that the images which we make wittingly or unwittingly to sell America to the world should come back to haunt and curse us.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“In a moment when criticism shows a singular dearth of direction every man has to be a law unto himself in matters of theatre, writing, and painting. While the American Mercury and the new Ford continue to spread a thin varnish of Ritz over the whole United States there is a certain virtue in being unfashionable.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)