I was in downtown NYC when 9/11 happened, and I saw the second plane hit. I then went and did some military and intelligence stuff for about a decade and a half. All of that is to say I’ve been involved with 9/11 and what happened after since Day 1.

My question is this - we all knew this was OBL’s point of view. I mean, after the towers fell I was standing in a crowd outside of Penn Station on 9/11 waiting for it to reopen, and everyone was talking about how it was probably OBL. He has been on that narrative for a decade or more, had executed other attacks, and was a known major actor.

It was very widely known that what had really set him off was the alliance between the Saudi government and the US, and in particular the US military presence in SA, which he saw as a holy land now occupied by infidels.

Everyone involved in “terrorist” operations always gives lip service to the Palestinians. I’m using scare quotes there because I think we throw around the word too much and it has lost all meaning except “people fighting using unconventional means.”

All of that aside, I’m honestly curious if this is the first time what I’m assuming are younger people are finding out that people like OBL and Arafat had a point of view and were not cardboard cutout bad guys. Nobody really believed they hate us for our freedom. I mean, there is a conflict in worldviews between conservative Islam and liberal western culture, but there’s also a conflict between conservative Islam and everything that isn’t conservative Islam, and there’s a conflict between conservative Christianity and liberal western culture that also results in acts of terrorism.

There are multiple geopolitical and moral dimensions to US involvement in regions around the world including the Middle East. They’re all worthy of debate and discussion.

I just am confused that a) this is new material for anyone and b) that people are treating it like they discovered Mein Kampf or the Protocols for the first time and are taking them at face value.