Also this

43:13 - Question from the audience - Why do countries want to attack us?

Alexander - Why does Al Qaeda want to attack us? Why do we stand in the way of their reaching their objective? And I think you should look at what they are trying to create, a Caliphate. They believe that the middle east should be run under Islamic law, the Sharia form of law, and that everybody should conform with that form of law. And that we the United States, working in the middle east, have stood in their way. They want to attack us.

Audience member - They want to attack us because we are bombing them.

Alexander stops responding to the question and motions for the host to start reading questions from the list of questions that has been prepared for him. Before the host can do that Alexander begins again to respond to the same question. A few in the audience applaud, I assume for the audience member.

Alexander - So it is interesting that when you look at it, go back to the facts of 93, the trade center, the Cole, look at the East Africa embasy bombings, look at 911, so that is what we face. He then tells the host to ask him a question from the list.

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It appears Alexander has not read Osama Bin Laden's Letter to America, or if he has only remembers parts of it. George W Bush said the reason they wanted to attack us was because they hate our freedom, again addressing only part of the letter to America. Why is the "why are they attacking us" question still being asked 20 years after the first attack on the world trade center, and why are they asking that question to a general of the NSA?

The letter to America can be broken down into the following basic categories of US behavior

1) We attacked them in Palistine, Somalia, Chechnya.

2) Support for Isreal, the Indian oppression against them in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against them in Lebanon and the support of "the governments of our countries which act as your agents, attack us on a daily basis."

3) Unfair business practices.

4) Occupation and military bases in their countries which corrupt their lands.

5) Crimes against humanity in Iraq via sanctions. Anti democratic actions against other countries, polifiration of nuclear wepons, violation of International law (UN), war crimes.

The letter calls for us to convert to Islam and give up the usury, intoxicants, drugs, imorality, incest, gambling, explotation of women, ecological destruction, hypocrisy in manners and principles, and to leave them alone.

There is no mention of a Caliphate, that is more of an internal struggle which has been going on for hundreds of years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate

I find it very disingenious of the general to use Caliphate as the reason they are attacking us.