Why Do They Hate Us?

Is it because of our foreign policy, as many on the left and some paleoconservatives assert? Is it because of our liberty and/or decadent lifestyle, as maintained by many on the right? No. Al Qaeda hates the West and wages jihad against it because the West is not Muslim.

Jean-Francois Revel once said that "Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it." Al Qaeda recognizes this and uses its propaganda to convince the West to direct its blame for the present unpleasantness inward on itself instead of blaming those who actually perpetrate terrorist attacks. Is it merely a coincidence that, say, al Qaeda's propaganda vis-a-vis Israel lines up nicely with those elements of the left for whom Palestine is a cause celebre as well as paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan? Is it any coincidence that al Qaeda's condemnations of Western decadence line up nicely with the criticisms leveled by many social conservatives (among whom I would number myself)? Irrespective of whether or not these criticisms have merit on their own, al Qaeda's purpose in issuing these proclamations is to cause people in Western society to turn their attention from the real enemy, al Qaeda and the various other Islamofascists, and make the disparate factions which make up Western society waste their energy fighting each other instead of fighting the forces waging open war on the West with terrorist tactics.

The West has been horribly divided since the Reformation (and Christendom since Rome and Constantinople split in 1054 A.D.), and its energies have largely been expended with internal conflicts that have had devastating consequences, especially for Europe, culminating in two World Wars and the Cold War. True, great political, economic and technological progress have been made, especially within the last hundred years, but this progress has masked a crisis of truth, not to mention the demographic crunch that threatens to undermine the most advanced nations in the world. Simply put, the West has enough problems as it is. We can scarcely afford to let al Qaeda propaganda exacerbate the divisions that threaten to undermine our efforts to deal with the threat posed by al Qaeda and their ilk.