We were not attacked on 9/11 because of our freedoms. We were not attacked on 9/11 because of American foreign policy. And 9/11 was certainly not an inside job. The truth of 9/11 is actually far sicker and more disturbing than even the dumbest of the “truther” theories.
Almost everyone who has commented on 9/11 has gotten Osama’s true motive wrong—perhaps because, psychologically, it is hard to accept 9/11 for what it truly was:
9/11 was, actually, Osama bin Laden's sick publicity stunt. A publicity stunt meant to demonstrate the effectiveness of his organization and to win approval, media coverage, and new recruits to his Al Qaeda organization.
Let’s step back for a minute and look at Osama’s ostensible motives for the attack. The most important things to observe about Osama’s stated motives for the attack is that his list of stated motives kept expanding over time. In his 1996 and 1998 Fatwahs, he does not mention Israel, at all, but instead focuses on sanctions against Iraq and the stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia yet in his 2002 letter he has added the Palestinian cause to his list of motives---along with "US support" for the war in Chechnya and support for Indian oppression of muslims in Kashmir. He talks as if Russia and India were close US allies. At that time, the US was much closer to Pakistan than India---and while Russia was not the enemy it had become, we were not that far away from our interventions in Serbia. Certainly, there was no support for Indian actions in Kashmir or for Russia's actions in Chechnya.
The point is, the motherfucker kept changing his mind and adding stuff to his list of motives like it was a neurotic, rich woman's grocery list. Why change your mind; why add motive after motive in subsequent publications?
The answer is that Osama was looking to get people to join his organization---and to win financial backers, so he kept adding "motives" as he released more letters, fatwas, and videos in an attempt to find backers who would donate once he attached himself to that cause. In short, he was rebranding the attack over time to win donors and recruits who sympathized with one Islamic cause more than another. The expanding list of motives were, in fact, rebranding efforts.
From Osama’s 2002 Letter:
"You attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon. . . We also advise you to stop supporting Israel, and to end your support of the Indians in Kashmir, the Russians against the Chechens and to also cease supporting the Manila Government against the Muslims in Southern Philippines."
“We also advise you to stop supporting Israel.” What a moving show of support for the “Palestinian cause.” By the way, honey, don’t forget the milk. In Osama’s letter, Palestine is an afterthought. If Chechnya and Kashmir matter so much to Osama, why didn’t he carry out any attacks against the Russian government or the Indian? Well, such attacks would receive less media coverage, for starters. And they wouldn’t serve his recruiting efforts as well. (Far, some may object that he also feared the Russians more. But could he have really feared the Indians more?)
A proper understanding of 9/11 requires an understanding of the terrorist attacks that preceded it: The earlier WTC attack, the attacks on various US embassies, and the attack on the USS Cole. Every single one of these attacks produced a surge in donations for Al Qaeda—a slew of new recruits. The attack on the USS Cole, the most brazen of the successful attacks prior to 9/11 (the 1993 WTC not being successful, of course), was met with a very tame military response from the Clinton administration but brought in even more recruits than the embassy bombings had. The pattern to Osama bin Laden was very clear: The bigger the attack, the bigger the donations and the larger the pool of recruits.
Of course, what Osama had not counted on was that Bush was a very different man from Clinton: The son of the man who had ordered the Persian Gulf War would not hesitate to initiate an aggressive military response. However, if we assume that he did not fully appreciate the difference both in the public reaction to the attack and the temperament of the respective president, his strategy of using attacks to win resources for his organization makes a certain amount of sense.
In short, 9/11 was the sickest publicity stunt of all time---a publicity stunt for an organization whose primary goals were in the middle east. Consider this, as soon as the US reacted to the attack militarily, Al Qaeda shifts its organizational focus: It becomes Al Nusra and focuses more on overthrowing Gaddafi in Libya and destabilizing Assad’s regime in Syria—to the point that we have now become “allies.”
They did this because, well, they now have enough recruits, and their real goals were always in the Middle East.
I don't say this to in any way diminish what happened to the victims on that tragic day: But the historical record needs to be corrected. Many of you, as brilliantly educated as you may be, may have failed to piece this together---or think that the actual motives have to do with Israel, etc. Some of you may have even bought Ron Paul's self-serving account that it was "our fault."
It was a publicity stunt meant to win money and recruits that was so overly effective that it backfired on the men who planned it.