Some might remember that Susette Kelo was the lead plaintiff in the benchmark United State Supreme Court case Kelo v. City of New London.  The Court held that the city could take the property of the plaintiffs and transfer it to a development company because there was a need for economic redevelopment in the area.

You might be interested to know what the New London Development Corporation and developer Corcoran Jennison have done with the property since the Court handed down its decision back in June 2005: nothing.

That's right, absolutely nothing has been built on the property that had to be taken from private citizens in order to quell the blight on the Fort Trumbull area of New London, Connecticut.

Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, Professor Ilya Somin has posted about the recent extension of deadlines for Corcoran Jennison and has posted links to several other articles.  You can check it out here.

If you're not outraged by this, do you have a pulse?

My last post started a discussion of the question whether islamic terrorism today is caused by hatred for the principles on which the US was founded  or whether it's caused by blowback from US foreign policy.  To reiterate, I think it is both.

Radical islam has always been hostile toward "the West."  The Q'uran itself teaches (in various places that those more well-informed than I would have to point you to) that it is the duty of Muslims to engage in jihad and subjugate all the infidels and "people of The Book."  The United States has been having run-in with the radical types since the end of the 18th century.  Before the Constitution had even been ratified, American ships were attacked, their goods stolen, and American sailors forced into slavery by the Barbary pirates. 

Why did that particular group of Muslims decide to attack ships from a country that had a negligible military to begin with, let alone any presence in the Middle East?  All the United States wanted to do was trade with nations around the Mediterranean.  Based on what the rulers of the nations along the Barbary Coast said, they saw the United States as a "Christian nation" with which even trading was unacceptable.  Not only did they feel that they had a duty to refuse to trade with us, they believed that it was incumbent upon them to keep the Christian West out of the region altogether.  The US wanted peaceful, mutual trade and it got tribute payments and the Tripolitan Wars.

Nothing has changed since then.  The radical islamists of President Jefferson's days are the same ones that issue fatwas against us today.

Then there is the fact that islamist terrorism and its influence is not a problem that is isolated to areas where radicals can take a shot at the United States.  For instance, two of the hotbeds for terrorism recently have been the Philippines and Indonesia.  The Kashmir region has been the sight of multiple terrorist attacks against Hindus.  When cartoonists in Denmark took shots at Muhammad, that country was on the brink of exploding; somehow, things died down without a catastrophic incident.  A fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie, calling for his death, because he wrote a book that the Ayatollah didn't like.  None of these had anything to do with the United States' policy in the Middle East.  They had to do with an entirely separate islamist agenda: the eventual establishment of a global caliphate, ruled by sharia.

The conclusion I draw from the above, is that there is a certain amount of hatred by islamists that there is nothing we can do to stop.  There is, has been, and always will be a certain, radical sect of the Muslim world that hates us simply because of what we represent.

That being said, I think it is naive to stop there.  The majority of Muslims are not part of radical islam.  There are between 1.1 and 1.8 billion Muslims in the world.  It is an infinitesimal portion that hates the United States solely because of what it stands for.  Palestinians (and others in the region) hate us because of our support for Israel.  Others merely resent our military presence in the Middle East.

There is no denying that many Iraqis greeted the Marines as liberators.  Only a rabid, anti-war, Bush-deranged liberal would deny it.  Over four years later, only a Kool-aid-drinking, Republican party hack would deny that a large portion of the Iraqi people now resent our continued presence there and want to have their country back for themselves-- something they haven't had since Saddam, came into power.

In all likelihood, most of those Muslims in Iraq, and across the Middle East, who want the US to reduce and then eliminate its military presence in the region are probably willing to wait patiently for the US to make that decision on its own.  Undoubtedly, some are not that patient.

I think Americans have to come to grips with the fact that some in the Middle East would be content to leave us alone if we would leave them alone.  Since we haven't done that, and they don't want to sit on their hands waiting for Congress and the President to decide that it's time to come home, they decide to take matters into their own hands.  They want to do something about it. 

Inevitably, some who feel that way turn to the groups that seem to be having the most success in "persuading" the United States to leave: terrorists.  One IED at a time, they are determined to force US troops to go home.  If the Americans can't understand that we don't want them here any more, then we have to do something to get their attention.  It's plain to me (now, if not in the past) that our policy toward the Middle East is creating some of the problems that we claim we have to fight against.

All of that is why I say that our problem is both blowback and the hatred of American principles of freedom.  Certain elements of the Muslim world hate us for what we stand for.  By continuing a foreign interventionist policy that is resented by some in the Middle East, we push individuals toward the radical wing of the religion.  If islamism were not such a prominent force in the Middle East, our foreign policy would probably not drive peaceful Muslims who resent US military presence toward acts of terrorism.  They have seen that the US reacted to increased terrorist attacks, not by reducing our presence, but by increasing it (through the surge).  If islamist terrorists were not there stoking the fires, those who resent US policy would be more likely to resort to diplomatic means to convince the US to leave the region.

I'm not saying that I have the answer to the problem in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East-- far from it.  What I am saying is that the problem cannot be reduce to a single cause.  Some of them hate us because of what we stand for; some of the hatred is blowback.  It is only the combination of those two forces that makes makes the situation in the Middle East what it is today.

In my mind, our continued policy toward islamofascist terrorism depends on the resolution of the choice posed by the title of my post.  Are they attacking us because they hate the United States and what it stands for or have they attacked us because of our unwelcome presence (militarily and diplomatically) in the Middle East?

Some feel that the War on Terror in which we are now embroiled is exclusively a function of the hate for the West that has been bred into some islamists.  Many terrorist attacks around the world bear no connection to the US presence in the Middle East.  I think there is a lot of merit to the argument that, if we leave them alone, they will still come after us wherever they can.

On the other side are those that believe that islamism is a recent phenomenon that is a result of US policy toward the Middle East.  Certainly, attacks have occurred in places other than the Middle East, but these were still a response to US policy and intervention in the Middle East.  I see a lot of merit here also.  While there were attacks on US interests prior to our increased military presence in the Middle East, terrorist attacks against the US have increased over the last couple decades.  The correlation cannot be entirely a coincidence.

So, then what's the answer?  Is Sean Hannity right?  Do they hate us simply because we're free?

Or is Congressman Ron Paul correct?  Is the current hatred of the US a product of our own foreign policy?

I think the only logical answer is that it is both.  Neither one is the exclusive root of this recent rash of attacks.  Neither reason excludes the possible influence of the other.  Both conclusions have flaws in the reasoning used to reach them. 

That will have to all from me for now.  I'll finish these thoughts in a later post, but I welcome your thoughts in the comments.