...lips of most Americans after the attacks on September 11, 2001 which left the World Trade Center in ruins and almost 5,000 people from 62 countries dead was not “Who?” but “Why?” With a declaration of “jihad,” or holy war, against the United States and numerous terrorist attacks to back it up, Osama bin Laden’s name was the first to come to mind for Americans who followed world events. But most remained baffled as to why a man—a wealthy man, a man whose father was a close friend of our good friend the king of Saudi Arabia, an intelligent and deeply religious man—would hate the United States at all, much less to hate it so much that he would perpetrate what has been labeled the most barbarous outrage against American citizens on American soil. The answer to that question is both simple and complicated, much like the man himself.
The roots of bin Laden’s conflict with the United States can be found in the formation of Saudi Arabia...