“Why Do They Hate Us?” Ask Aafia Siddiqui

By Kevin Barrett, for the forthcoming issue of American Free Press

On September 20, 2001, George W. Bush delivered a speech to Congress. Invoking the September 11 attacks, which the media had falsely blamed on radical Muslims within minutes of the Towers exploding into dust, Bush famously asked: “Why do they hate us?” He fatuously answered his own question: “They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”

On March 9, 2016, then candidate for President Donald J. Trump echoed Bush’s words: “I think Islam hates us.” Like Bush, he offered no coherent explanation. Oddly, Trump proposed policies seemingly intended to incite more hatred, including a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” and “taking out the families” of alleged Muslim terrorists.

It’s true that the United States has been angering Muslims, before and after 9/11—primarily by supporting the Zionist genocide of Palestine. It has also angered Chinese, Russians, Africans, and especially Latin Americans by pursuing arrogant and often murderous policies in those nations and regions. If Trump had followed his “America first” principles he could have greatly reduced the world’s anger at the US simply by turning it into a country that minds its own business.

In a world where ever-more-dangerous weaponry is ever-easier to come by, the US ought to be making friends rather than enemies. How?