FIND REASONS WHY THEY HATE US

The war on terrorism is illusive and analogous to the wars on drugs and
crime. A clear victory can never be established. In the war on drugs and
crime, society tries to determine and address the root cause. Drug addicts
are treated with counseling and criminals with rehabilitation.

What motivates the terrorist? Are we doing anything to find out why we are
the victims of Middle Eastern terrorists? We know they hate us but are we
trying to determine why and can anything be done to eliminate their
reasons? The terrorists will multiply and be a threat to America for
generations to come unless we address the root causes.

It is not as simplistic as Mr. Bush's statement that they hate us because
we are a free democracy. Do they hate us because we are officious
intermeddlers in their national affairs? Such as manipulating national
boundaries, supporting repressive monarchies and dictatorships, using them
as surrogates to fight the Russians, supplying F-16s and Apache helicopters
to their enemies, and not supporting United Nations resolutions against
their enemies?

The CIA has been involved in covert ghost wars in the Middle East over the
past several decades with little or no direction from Washington. Their
policies were at the whim of each CIA director and the regional operation
chief. With the help of the CIA we have done a good job of making enemies
out of friends. They resent us because they believe we are interested only
in their oil and look down on them as a colony. Do they believe we see the
Israeli-Palistine war through the lens of the Israelis? Ramzi Yousel, the
World Trade Center 1993 bomber, told the FBI that Jewish targets were his
first priority but they were too secure so he bombed "his enemies' friends."

Trying to root out terrorism without replowing the soil in which it grows
is unlikely to succeed. It is time to start rethinking the policies that
breed anti-American sentiment.

Tom Matthew, Bradenton