According to this opinion poll of people around the world in The Independent, we were.

It’s kind of a dumb poll if the following question is what was really asked:

In America, only 18 per cent considered that “US policies and actions in the world” were seen as a main cause of the attacks. Elsewhere, that rose to 58 per cent, and to 81 per cent in the Middle East and the area around Afghanistan.

Well, when you put it that way, I actually agree–it was US policies and actions in the world that were the main cause of the attacks. But I suspect that I differ with most of those polled as to just what those flawed “policies and actions” were. My guess is that by “policies and actions,” we’re supposed to assume that means things like support of Israel, having troops in Saudi Arabia, and forcing everyone to eat McDonalds, while wearing their Nikes and watching Britney Spears.

No, the main US policies and actions that led up to September 11 were our coddling of Middle-Eastern dictators in Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the West Bank, et al, and eviscerating our human intelligence capability. We teased the terrorists, and led them on, so they believed that they could actually get away with that kind of crap, because for a long time, they did.

But we’ve fixed those flawed policies, at least for now, as is evidenced by scores of dead Al Qaeda and Taliban thugs, and bare-faced women and kite flyers in Afghanistan…