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Why do they hate us?

That's a question many Americans have been asking about radical Muslims ever since al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four jetliners and attacked our nation nine years ago.

Lawrence Wright, a staff writer for The New Yorker, often asked that same question while researching his book, The Looming Tower: al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. The book alone, which won a Pulitzer Prize is informative enough and goes a long way toward providing some answers (we'll never have them all). But Wright took things a step further by turning his material into a critically-acclaimed one-man play, My Trip to al-Qaeda. And now his material shows up in yet another form of media—a movie by the same title which features snippets from Wright's stage play, interviews, documentary footage, photographs, and more.

Wright got to know bin Laden's brother-in-law

My Trip to al-Qaeda debuts on HBO tonight, and will run on HBO and HBO2 throughout the month (and on demand into early October). It's one of the most compelling things I've seen this year, and certainly one of the most educational 90 minutes you'll get on the topic. You might not learn all the reasons they hate us, but you'll learn quite a bit about the roots of al-Qaeda, Islamic radicalism, and hostility to America.

Wright's interviews include a terrorist who killed a 12-year-old girl while trying to assassinate the Egyptian prime minister; a once-jailed Muslim who describes the torture techniques that turned Islamic intellectuals many into radicals; and a Saudi businessman who was married to Osama bin Laden's sister.

We caught up with Wright via e-mail recently to discuss the film, what he learned from his research, and why he thinks radical Muslims hold so much hatred for the West.

We journalists are supposed to be objective. But when something like 9/11 happens, when people say it's their goal to kill Americans, isn't objectivity pretty hard?

Remaining objective was really difficult for me. I was angry and grieving over the damage done to my country. Meantime, I was talking to a lot of people who were also very angry at America, as well as being full of denial about their responsibility for the tragedy.

I had a particularly nasty spat with one of the leaders of the Muslim Brothers on my last day in Egypt. He had recently gotten out of prison, and I had had my fill of anti-American rhetoric. When he started laying out the revisionist history about America's involvement in the Middle East, which was so wildly distorted, I just flew into a rage. I know I was tired, and I'm not proud of that moment. For one thing, it wasn't helpful. I didn't get the interview I wanted; my feelings just got in the way.

Some people believe that Islam is basically a peaceful faith, and that extremists are taking teachings and some Qur'an passages way out of context. Others believe that Mohammed and the Qur'an do teach violence and jihad. Based on your research, what do you think is the truth?

The Qur'an, and particularly the hadith—the various accumulated records of the sayings of Mohammed—do have some passages that justify violence, glorify jihad, and deprecate Jews. It's impossible to avoid hearing them cited when talking to jihadis or scanning the websites. On the other hand, there are many other passages that emphasize justice and compassion. It's a matter of what [Muslim] believers choose to emphasize. Imagine if Jews and Christians decided to slaughter homosexuals or stone disobedient children, as the Bible instructs us to do.

Why do radical Muslims hate us so much? Is it directed at Christians, at Americans, at Westerners, or what? Or even all of the above?

It's a mistake to think that the radical Islamists drawn into al-Qaeda hate Christianity, the West, and America more than they hate other Muslims who don't believe exactly as they do. We focus on their rhetoric against the West, but if you look at their actions, they mainly kill other Muslims. Many more Muslims have died at the hands of al-Qaeda—in Iraq alone—than Americans died on 9/11. There is a certainly a hatred of America for supporting repressive Arab governments, but practically all Arab governments are repressive, whether we support them or not, so in my opinion this is just a way of holding the U.S. responsible for the failure of the Arab political system to reform itself.

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