They Hate Us For Our Freedom

And they are a pack of insane, violent murderers because of their religion.  That's pretty much it, right?  People in the Middle East wouldn't have any other reason to hate us or be suspicious of us, because we are Western Civilization, the best thing that has ever happened in the whole universe.

No reason to hate us at all, except maybe for a few irrelevant issues like this:

Egypt:

"The French Campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) was Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in the Orient, ostensibly to protect French trade interests, undermine Britain's access to India"

And then:

"The Anglo-Egyptian War occurred in 1882 between Egyptian and Sudanese forces under Ahmed ‘Urabi and the United Kingdom. It ended a nationalist uprising against the khedive Tewfik Pasha and vastly expanded British influence over the country, at the expense of the French."

More:

"...by 1882 Islamic and Arabic Nationalist opposition to European influence and settlement in the Middle East led to growing tension amongst notable natives, especially in Egypt which then as now was the most powerful, populous, and influential of Arabian nations.  

A large military demonstration in September 1881 forced the Khedive Tewfiq to dismiss his Prime Minister and rule by decree. Many of the Europeans retreated to specially designed quarters suited for defence or heavily European settled cities such as Alexandria. 

Consequently, in April 1882 France and Great Britain sent warships to Alexandria...when the British succeeded in defeating the Egyptian Army at Tel El Kebir in September and took control of the country to the 1952 Egyptian revolution which made Egypt a republic and when British advisers were expelled.

Morocco:

"Two times in the decade before WWI, disputes over Morocco ignited extremely dangerous European crises. 

Germany felt threatened by the loose alignment between France and Britain.  Twice, Berlin came up with the scheme of deliberately provoking a crisis by challenging the growing French influence in Morocco, hoping to humiliate France and force it to break off its association with Britain.  Both times, the plan backfired - ties between France and Britain were strengthened, and Germany was left more isolated than ever.  Although war was narrowly avoided in 1905-1906 and in 1911, both of the Moroccan Crises sharply ratcheted up European tensions and helped bring on the First World War."

Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine:

"The Sykes–Picot Agreement, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and France,[1] with the assent of Russia, defining their proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East should the Triple Entente succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I... 

The agreement effectively divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of future British and French control or influence...Britain was allocated control of areas roughly comprising the coastal strip between the sea and River Jordan, Jordan, southern Iraq, and a small area including the ports of Haifa and Acre, to allow access to the Mediterranean.[6] France was allocated control of south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.[citation needed] Russia was to get Istanbul, the Turkish Straits and the Ottoman Armenian vilayets"

Sudan

"With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt and Sudan's economic and strategic importance increased enormously, attracting the imperial attentions of the Great Powers, particularly the United Kingdom. Ten years later in 1879, the immense foreign debt of Ismail Pasha's government served as the pretext for the Great Powers to force his abdication and replacement by his son Tewfik Pasha. The manner of Tewfik's ascension at the hands of foreign powers greatly angered Egyptian and Sudanese nationalists who resented the ever-increasing influence of European governments and merchants in the affairs of the country. The situation was compounded by Tewfik's perceived corruption and mismanagement and ultimately culminated in the 'Urabi Revolt. With the survival of his throne in dire jeopardy, Tewfik appealed for British assistance. In 1882, at Tewfik's invitation, the British bombarded Alexandria, Egypt's and Sudan's primary seaport, and subsequently invaded the country. British forces overthrew the Orabi government in Cairo and proceeded to occupy the rest of Egypt and Sudan in 1882. Though officially the authority of Tewfik had been restored, in reality the British largely took control of Egyptian and Sudanese affairs until 1932. 

Even when the British ended their occupation of Egypt in 1936 (with the exception of the Suez Canal Zone), they maintained their forces in Sudan. Successive governments in Cairo, repeatedly declaring their abrogation of the condominium agreement, declared the British presence in Sudan to be illegitimate...It was the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 which finally set a series of events in motion which would eventually end the British occupation of Sudan."

Iran:

"...in 1905-1906, Persia had the first democratic revolution in Asia.[43] Known as the Constitutional Revolution, massive popular protests forced Mozzafar-e-din Shah to allow for the Constitution of 1906, which limited his powers. It allowed for a democratically elected parliament Majlis to make the laws, and a prime minister to sign and carry them out. 

The Constitutional Revolution was opposed by the British and Russians, who attempted to subvert it through the backing of Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar (the son of Mozzafar-e-din Shah), who tried to break up the democratic government by force. A guerrilla movement led by Sattar Khan deposed him in 1910."

And later, of course:

"The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup, was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom (under the name 'Operation Boot') and the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project). 

Mossadegh had sought to audit the books of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now BP) and to change the terms of the company's access to Iranian oil reserves. 

Popular discontent with the AIOC began in the late 1940s: a large segment of Iran's public and a number of politicians saw the company as exploitative and a central tool of continued British imperialism in Iran. Despite Mosaddegh's popular support, the AIOC was unwilling to allow Iranian authorities to audit the company accounts or to renegotiate the terms of its access to Iranian oil. In 1951, Iran's oil industry was nationalized with near-unanimous support of Iran's parliament in a bill introduced by Mossadegh who led the nationalist party the National Front. In response, Britain instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically. Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the British-built Abadan oil refinery, then the world's largest, but Prime Minister Clement Attlee opted instead to tighten the economic boycott while using Iranian agents to undermine Mosaddegh's government. With a change to more conservative governments in both Britain and the United States, Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration decided to overthrow Iran's government, though the predecessor Truman administration had opposed a coup.  Classified documents show that British intelligence officials played a pivotal role in initiating and planning the coup, and that the AIOC contributed $25,000 towards the expense of bribing officials. 

As a condition for restoring the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company... five American petroleum companies, Royal Dutch Shell, and the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, were to draw Iran's petroleum after the successful coup d'état—Operation Ajax. The Shah declared this to be a "victory" for Iranians"

Libya

"The History of Libya as an Italian colony started in 1911 and was characterized initially by a major struggle with Muslim native Libyans that lasted until 1931. During this period, the Italian government controlled only the coastal areas of the colony. 

After the Italian Empire's conquest of Ottoman Tripolitania (Ottoman Libya), in the 1911–12 Italo-Turkish War, much of the early colonial period had Italy waging a war of subjugation against Libya's population. Ottoman Turkey surrendered its control of Libya in the 1912 Treaty of Lausanne...After prolonged discussions through the 1920s, it was not until 1935 that the Mussolini-Laval agreement was reached and Italy received the Aouzou strip that was added to Libya..."

Algeria:

"French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France...The conquest of Algeria was initiated in the last days of the Bourbon Restoration by Charles X, as an attempt to increase his popularity amongst the French people, particularly in Paris, where many veterans of the Napoleonic Wars lived. His intention was to bolster patriotic sentiment, and distract attention from ineptly handled domestic policies by "skirmishing against the dey".

Afghanistan, Pakistan:

"The Great Game" was a term for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia.[1] The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. A less intensive phase followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917."

Here's a crude map of all of this:

I'm sure I've missed some countries, but everyone's patience must be pretty well exhausted at this point.  Let me make just one observation about all of this:  Whenever motivations for this behavior are recorded, the interests of the people there are never, ever mentioned.  It was all about what was good for the European powers, and later the United States.

We've been involved in the morass of the Middle East for a good part of all of our lives, and yet after all the waste of lives and money, it is still essentially taboo in this country to mention a single bit of what is above.  So instead, the battle cry remains "they hate us for our freedom."  How long do you think it will take for that kind of thinking to result in finding a way out of the violence over there?