A day Americans will never forget. 9/11/01. On this day 19 terrorists boarded multiple commercial airplanes, hijacked them and crashed them into different targets on the eastern coast. Their targets were the World Trade Centers, and the Pentagon. The others lost control and crashed in fields. There are many theories to why these attacks happened, the most reasonable being US foreign policies in the middle east, in particular its support of Israel, 9/11, is a response to foreign occupation, and the most controversial the CIA. All causes leading to the horrific attacks on America.

First cause is America’s foreign policies particularly in the support of Israel. Bin laden saying that this was the main reason al Qaeda is attacking America (samuelj). Bin Laden’s judgment never came from the American culture but from the US support for Israel. Especially the support it gave to Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982. This specific event triggered Bin Laden’s anti-Americanism. In retaliation his first actions involved a boycott of US goods in the 1980s(prospect). But as problems escalated in the Middle East many groups began to feel the same as Bin Laden towards America. Throughout this time ties between the Middle East and America deteriorated even further. What made it worse was the decision to deploy 500,000 US troops to Saudi Arabia after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.This resulted in even more resentment towards the United States and their polices.

The second cause or reason why 9/11 happened was because of America’s foreign occupation in the Middle East namely in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In his book Dying to Win, political scientist Robert Pape examined modern suicide campaigns and concluded that they are driven not by religious zeal but by foreign occupation in other countries (prospect). This means that the suicide attacks were fueled not by religious beliefs but from the occupation of their country by foreign countries (the USA). This theory might explain why 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, as there was a substantial US presence in the Saudi kingdom around that time, but it does not explain the other four hijackers, who were Lebanese, Egyptian and Emirati, none of those countries were occupied by the US(samuelj). This shows how one can conclude that the 9/11 attacks were mainly fueled by nationalism not religion.
The third most likely cause of the 9/11 attacks was the influence of the CIA(campaign). In mid-1979, the same time as the Soviet Union deployed troops into Afghanistan, the United States began giving several hundred million dollars a year to the Afghan Mujahedeen insurgents fighting the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Army. With the Afghan Mujahedeen were Muslim volunteers from other countries, known as Afghan Arabs. The most famous of the Afghan Arabs was Osama bin Laden, known at the time as a wealthy and pious Saudi who provided his own money and helped raise millions from other wealthy Gulf Arabs (bibliotec). Later, Bin Laden organized the Al-Qaeda organization to carry on armed jihad in other countries; the primary target is the United States which is the same country that had helped fund the Mujahedeen against the Soviets. A number of analysts have described Al-Qaeda attacks as blowback or an unintended consequence of American aid to the Mujahedeen (campaign). In response to these claims the American government and Pakistani intelligence officials involved denied this theory. They said the aid went to the Pakistani government and then distributed through them (bibliotec). This broke the connection between the US aid and Al-Qaeda from a financial point of view.
With the three causes explained one could easily see how certain events ultimately ended in the attacks on the World Trade Centers. Whether it be from our foreign policies to secret CIA funding. The end result we all know. The death of over 3,000 men, women, and children. People’s lives were changed forever as a result. This shows how when certain leaders of a country conduct themselves in the wrong way people from the other countries see only the bad because that’s all that is portrayed. In this case Osama Bin Laden had great anger towards the US, and he acted on those emotions.
As you can see the causes of the September 11 attacks are inconclusive vague because of the number of theories and the detail they get into. But what we know for sure is that it happened and it will forever be in America’s history as a horrible tragedy that resulted in thousands of American lives lost and thousands more affected in some way whether it is the families of the victims or the families of the troops. This is a lesson to be learned for our future sons and daughters .