[1024core]

Most of this is just speculation until the Kuwaiti pilot is identified. If it turns out he is a Shia muslim, then it'll open up a new dimension on this event.

History buffs may remember that the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia was the catalyst that turned OBL into America's foe. He had offered his services to the King to defend KSA against Saddam Hussein (after Saddam swallowed Kuwait), but the King politely refused and speed dialled the USA instead. The rest is history.

[red-iron-pine]

there is 0% chance that a fighter pilot in the Kingdom of Kuwait is a Shia.

only people flying in Kuwait are those with connections to the Emir and his people, and they're unambiguously Sunni

I'd be more concerned with the US just pissing off the Sunnis, stuff like

> In January 2026, the United States government suspended immigrant visas for citizens of Kuwait and 74 other countries due to the high dependency of Kuwaiti immigrants on American welfare benefits.[219] Kuwait is the only GCC country on the visa suspension list.[219]

[breppp]

Saying the presence of American troops is the reason Bin Laden was anti-american is ideological flattening of Islamism, a movement from at least the 1920s that sees the entire failure of Islam in modernity as a product of western imperialism (a word that is very abused in their ideas), culture and ideas

[_DeadFred_]

OBL stated his reasons including the stationing of American troops in Saudi Arabia.

[breppp]

This is an overly US centric view which misses a lot of substance.

Bin Laden major start in jihadism was in afghanistan, while there were already US soldiers in his home nation of saudi arabia. for some reason that deployment wasn't deemed important enough to fight.

If you read a bit into the ideological influence of bin laden, such his teachers you would know the ideology is heavily based on the Muslim Brotherhood.

They do not only see a problem with western imperialism, which he incorrectly deduced the US deployment to be.

It also sees a major threat in western culture to Islamic values. The reason why the west needs to be fought in NYC rather than the troops in Arabia is because they felt Islam is under attack culturally. As in, everyone will throw their religion away, families will devolve and immodesty will be rampant.

So it is naive to think that if the US would not be involved in the Middle East then it won't be attacked, and it is replicating the pre-ww2 thought which was mildly unsuccessful

[_DeadFred_]

In this case we have OBLs primary writing to go on, and he is who laid out this motivation claim. I'm not sure your age, but this was talked about quite in depth at the time.

[breppp]

I'm sorry, not everything that was talked in depth in American media due to someone's propaganda pandering US isolationism can erase 80 prior years of written ideology

[_DeadFred_]

But the dudes OWN WRITING sure as heck can.

Keep on your agenda and ignore reality I guess.