Why was America attacked on 9-11?

Answer 1

There are two major reasons:

1) Al-Qaeda, as an organization, has as its mission the forcible conversion to Islam of the entire world. It does not recognize the right of Freedom of Religion and the idea that a powerful country, such as the United States could reject their demands to convert to Islam angered them enough to wish to inflict terrible pain on the United States.

2) American Foreign Policy in the Muslim World, especially as concerns Israel, angers a lot of Arabs. The support for a regime they see as violent towards their own people (the Palestinians) causes much ire. Additionally, the United States supported a coup d'état in Iran, supported Iraq before invading and supplanting it, empowered the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, and many other issues. This anger with American Foreign Policy could only be rectified, in their opinion, if Americans could truly suffer for their foreign policy decisions like Muslims do.

Two things are worth noting here. Firstly, Islam as a religion does not promote the idea of forcible conversion even though organizations like Al-Qaeda use this mechanism. It is one of the many ways that Al-Qaeda misrepresents the tenets of Islam. Secondly, George W. Bush's mantra that "they hate us for our freedom" is only a half-truth. The second part of that statement, that, of course, he never uttered, is "and our intent to squash theirs." Most Muslims want to be free and Arab Spring is a perfect example of how Arabs are ready to fight for freedom instead of against it.