I refer to “US ‘policy bias’ no excuse for terrorist attacks” (Streats, Oct 6) by Tan Hai San. In response to Azami’s letter on October 4th, Mr. Tan wrote that the US foreign policy bias towards Israel cannot be used to justify the September 11 terrorist attacks. I totally agree with him for such violence is totally unjustifiable under any circumstances. But he fails to see Azami’s point of his letter, which I believe is too important, though so easy, for us to miss.
Like Azami, I believe it’s important to get to the root cause of the attacks. We need to ask ourselves, “Why did the terrorists do what they did?” and try to find an explanation for these attacks. If not, the whole world (including the US) will never learn from these sad events.
Knowing the root cause of the anger of a lot of muslims worldwide (which includes Osama bin Laden), we will then be able to better understand how to solve the situation. To simply try to explain the cause of the hatred against the US is not to excuse these evil acts. But such is a necessary step if we desire to understand the perpetrator’s motivation and seek to prevent future terrorist acts. Or do we prefer to see history repeating itself?