Gary North's REALITY CHECK
Issue 392 November 2, 2004
OSAMA'S PUBLIC AGENDA AND PRIVATE TACTIC
The appearance of a videotape shown on al-Jazeera TV on
October 29 puts to rest a continuing rumor, always devoid of
evidence, that bin Laden was dead -- not that his martyrdom would
not have been an effective recruiting tool for his terrorist
organization. He has been in a win-win position ever since the
U.S. invaded Afghanistan. But the video was a reminder to the
West and to his followers: he is still thumbing his nose at the
United States and all of the emirates and Islamic military
regimes that are allied with the U.S.
Commentators in the U.S. have remarked that his tape was
timed to get headlines in the weekend before the American
Presidential election. I have no doubt that this timing was
deliberate. He understands the Western media. Now, in addition,
he has Islamic media outlets. There are at least three dozen
satellite TV networks in the Middle East.
Yet the video was not aimed exclusively at Americans in
general, despite his assurance to the contrary. It was aimed at
two men: Bush and Kerry. It was also aimed at Muslims in the
Middle East, both as a preliminary statement and as a way to
provoke the United States President, whoever he may turn out to
be, to take action.
ALINSKY'S TACTIC
In 2003, I wrote an analysis of bin Laden's long-run tactic,
which I compared to the tactic developed originally by Gandhi and
appropriated in the 1960s and 1970s by the radical Chicago
organizer, Saul Alinsky. Gandhi and Alinsky were non-violent,
but the heart of their tactic is not inherently non-violent. The
tactic is this: "The action is the reaction." The initiator
designs a public confrontation that will lead to one of several
responses, each of which will probably backfire on the
respondent. I published my report on April 1, 2003. It was
posted on Lew Rockwell's site the next day. I began with a 1998
quotation from bin Laden.
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies --
civilians and military -- is an individual duty for
every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it
is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa
Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and
in order for their armies to move out of all the lands
of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.
This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God,
"and fight the pagans all together as they fight you
all together," and "fight them until there is no more
tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and
faith in God."
He was issuing a personal fatwa against Americans, which he
had no authority to issue because he is not a Muslim cleric. In
doing this, he was trying to establish his position as a
religious leader, despite his lack of ordination. I wrote:
Osama bin Laden has had one overriding goal for over a
decade: to create a jihad between Islam and the United
States. He made this goal clear in a 1998 document,
World Islamic Front Statement Urging Jihad Against Jews
and Crusaders. Here, we read:
First, for over seven years the United States
has been occupying the lands of Islam in the
holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula,
plundering its riches, dictating to its
rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing
its neighbors, and turning its bases in the
Peninsula into a spearhead through which to
fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
If some people have in the past argued about
the fact of the occupation, all the people of
the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The
best proof of this is the Americans'
continuing aggression against the Iraqi
people using the Peninsula as a staging post,
even though all its rulers are against their
territories being used to that end, but they
are helpless.
His first reason for calling his followers to commit attacks
on Americans was America's presence in Saudi Arabia. We have now
pulled out. Who looks like the winner in this confrontation?
The action is the reaction. Bin Laden continued:
Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the
Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and
despite the huge number of those killed, which has
exceeded 1 million . . . despite all this, the
Americans are once again trying to repeat the
horrific massacres, as though they are not content with
the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war
or the fragmentation and devastation.
So here they come to annihilate what is left of this
people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.
Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are
religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the
Jews' petty state and divert attention from its
occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there.
The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy
Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their
endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such
as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper
statelets and through their disunion and weakness to
guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the
brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.
Having presented bin Laden's own assessment of what
motivated him, I then summarized Alinsky's principle, which I
believe bin Laden has understood, although without having read
Alinsky's books.
Osama bin Laden has understood this principle better
than any other radical in our era. He keeps escalating
his challenges. His attack on the World Trade Center on
September 11 was either his second attempt -- assuming
that he was the inspiration of the 1993 bombing -- or
else proof that he was a gifted imitator. He launched a
pre-emptive strike against the symbol of American
capitalism.
In his latest videotape, he has taken credit for the attack
on the Twin Towers. This is the first time that he has done so.
What I find most interesting is his claim -- which I discount as
a retroactive invention -- that he got the idea as early as 1982,
when America backed the Israelis' invasion of Lebanon. He spoke
of having conceived of the attack on the Twin Towers then. This
makes him look like a long-term strategist with nearly omniscient
powers.
I say to you Allah knows that it had never occurred to
us to strike towers.
But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the
oppression and tyranny of the America/Israeli coalition
against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to
my mind.
The events that affected my soul in a difficult way
started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to
invade Lebanon and the American 6th fleet helped them
in that.
And the whole world saw and heard but did not respond.
In those difficult moments many hard to describe ideas
bubbled in my soul but in the end they produced intense
feelings of rejection of tyranny and gave birth to a
strong resolve to punish the oppressors.
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon
it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressors
in kind and that we destroy towers in America in order
that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they
be deterred from killing our women and children.
In previous declarations, he had made no mention of Lebanon.
Now, without warning, he ascribes his motivation and his plan of
action in terms of events in 1982. He blames Americans for an
invasion of Lebanon in 1982, not their presence on Saudi Arabian
soil in 2001. His argument has shifted. I think there is a
tactical reason for this shift: to gain moral justification among
his followers for further bloodshed. Yet he does not call for
such bloodshed in the tape. His strategy is indirect.
First, he says specifically that this message is for
Americans.
People of United States, this talk of mine is for you
and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan
and deals with the war and its causes and results.
I think he is telling the truth at this point, but not the
whole truth. Much of the tape is devoted to making President
Bush look incompetent. He is specifically responding to Bush's
original claim that the United States was attacked because of
America's commitment to freedom. Nonsense, says bin Laden.
If so, then let him explain why did not strike -- for
example -- Sweden.
No, he says, it was an act of revenge on behalf of Lebanon.
This has infuriated at least one journalist in Lebanon, who wrote
in "The Daily Star,"
Notice here, a clear shift in strategy. Bin Laden is no
longer talking about ejecting the "infidels" from the
Arabian peninsula. He isn't attacking any particular
Arab leader. If Lebanon had such a profound impact, if
it had played such a salient role in shaping his views
and his hatred of America, why then did he wait from
1982 until 2001 to launch a large-scale attack on the
United States? (http://snipurl.com/a7gm)
Bin Laden then blames the President for the extra deaths
because of his failure to act decisively. In other words, he
calls into question Bush's ability to lead. Why did he just sit
there in that elementary school classroom? Bin Laden gets the
story wrong: a little girl's story about her pet goat rather than
her reading of a children's book, "My Pet Goat."
It never occurred to us that the Commander in Chief of
the armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens
in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone at
a time when they most needed him.
But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by
talking to the little girl about the goat and its
butting was more important than occupying himself with
the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers we were
given three times the period required to execute the
operations. All praise is due to Allah.
While his version of the pet goat story is not quite
accurate, it is close enough to indicate that he or his
informants are paying close attention to events in the United
States. He is not cut off from communications. This makes him
dangerous.
He ended his tape with a warning to Americans:
Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or
al-Qaida. Your security is in your own hands and each
state which does not harm our security will remain
safe.
This produced an immediate response from both Bush and
Kerry: they will track down bin Laden, no matter what.
This man understands Alinsky's tactic. While he officially
aimed the tape at Americans, the response of both candidates was
predictable. He has presented himself as an avenger of helpless
Lebanon, a country invaded by the Israelis two decades ago, from
which they have pulled out. He issues a warning guaranteed to
get a particular response, which in turn becomes widely reported
in the Middle East.
America has never dealt with a foe this media-savvy. He has
no state affiliation, so the American military cannot easily
locate him. He has no official position, so our government
cannot buy off his subordinates. He understands the enormous and
growing resentment of Muslims in the region. He invents an
implausible story about Lebanon's demolished towers (what
towers?) and the Twin Towers. He makes himself look like a
master strategist who worked from 1982 to (maybe) 1993, and
surely 2001. Now he sits back and waits.
The action is the reaction.
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REPLACING SADDAM HUSSEIN
Saddam is a secularist and a socialist. As such, he was the
enemy of bin Laden. Bin Laden referred to him as an infidel on
Feb. 11, 2003, just before the United States invaded Iraq. He
called for armed assistance to the Iraqi people, but not in
support of Iraq's government. (http://snipurl.com/a7hr)
The United States has replaced Saddam Hussein. The problem
is, bin Laden is working to become the replacement of the elected
replacement. He is positioning himself to replace Saddam as the
agent of anti-Americanism in the entire region.
He cannot accomplish this as an agent of any nation-state.
He thinks he can do this as an agent of a fictitious nation.
This nation is the nation of Islam. It has no borders.
I have been arguing since early October, 2001, that bin
Laden has been creating a legend for himself. I wrote:
Where do we get the word "assassin"? From the word for
"hashish." Legend has it that the Old Man of the
Mountain -- the bin Laden of his day -- formed a
terrorist organization in response to the Western
crusaders. He had his men use hashish to build their
confidence. The assassins were dedicated terrorists.
References to the Old Man of the Mountain go back at
least to the 12th century. (The best book on this
group is Bernard Lewis's "The Assassins: A Radical Sect
of Islam.") The idea of eternal glory and the
attainment of heavenly bliss through suicidal acts of
terrorism goes back a long time on Islam's theological
fringes. Bin Laden fits well into this pattern.
The Assassins fought the Crusaders, but they also
assassinated rulers who got in their way. With this in mind,
consider bin Laden's words in his latest tape.
We have not found it difficult to deal with the Bush
administration in light of the resemblance it bears to
the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled
by the military and the other half of which are ruled
by the sons of kings and presidents.
This is clearly a call to resistance to, and presumably the
assassination of, regional rulers of Islamic countries. What
Saddam Hussein did not call for, bin Laden is calling for: the
de-stabilization of the entire region. He is a terrorist in the
tradition of the Assassins.
He is not acting as a head of state, yet he speaks of a
nation.
No, we fight because we are free men who do not sleep
under oppression.
We want to restore freedom to our Nation and just as
you lay waste to our Nation so shall we lay waste to
yours. (http://snipurl.com/a7ga)
It should be clear that when he says "nation," he has in
mind a regional Islamic resistance movement, not a geographically
limited entity, a nation-state. So, what William Lind has
described in detail as fourth-generation warfare is what bin
Laden represents. There is no head to cut off, no single group
to negotiate with, no supply line to cut off, no headquarters to
bomb. The existence of the tape points to the failure in
Afghanistan.
Osama bin Laden is not some lunatic. He knows his enemies,
nearby and distant, and he knows what appeals to potential
recruits. He is thumbing his nose jointly at Kerry and Bush in
the tradition of an ancient Islamic organization: a secret
society terrorist group. Islamic satellite television networks
are his allies in this because they cannot resist airing his
tapes. Neither can Western newspapers. Google's news service
assembled a staggering total of 3,480 related news newspaper
stories about the tape.
We are dealing with a dedicated master of the media, who
uses this access to hundreds of millions of potential recruits to
recruit a cadre that will survive the pull-out of American forces
in Iraq. At that point, it will not be safe for regional
leaders. He has made this plain.
Our experience with them is lengthy and both types are
replete with those who are characterized by pride,
arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth.
This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Senior
to the region at a time when some of our compatriots
were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits
would have an effect on our countries. All of a sudden
he was affected by these monarchies and military
regimes and became jealous of their remaining decades
in their position to embezzle the public wealth of the
Nation without supervision or accounting.
He blames regional monarchs for the sins of Bush Sr., who
was supposedly impressed by the monarchs' ability to swindle
their own people. He is undermining Muslims' confidence in their
rulers by making the rulers the true villains -- the people
ultimately responsible for the invasion of Iraq.
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to
provoke and bait this administration.
This man is self-conscious. He is using Alinsky's tactic to
provoke and bait his political enemies, the Bush family, and he
is undermining the civil rulers of the Middle East while he is
doing it.
He has made it clear that no matter who wins the election,
Americans will not be safe until they pull out of the Middle
East. When we do, the rulers of the region will be facing
disaster. He has tarred and feathered them already. His
disciples, as well as his imitators, will be facing leaders who
will know that there will be no deliverance by America.
He is betting on a U.S. pull-out. I think this is a safe
bet. He will let the Iraqi resistance movement do his bloody
work for him. He called for this jihad in 1998, and he then used
Alinsky's tactic to achieve it.
PULLING THE OIL PLUG
The de-stabilization of the Middle East has begun. Bin
Laden knows the soft underbelly of the West: oil. He is
preparing his disciples and the ordinary Muslim citizen for a
change in regimes. This change will come whenever it is clear
that the United States has pulled out.
There are all sorts of rumors floating around as to when
this will be. This much is sure: with 40% of our troops in Iraq
supplied by the reserves, the pull-out is only a matter of time.
Fourth-generation warfare -- insurgency -- is premised on the
fact that the insurgents have nowhere to go, being home, while
the occupying forces can go home, and the folks back home want
their sons an daughters out of harm's way. So, American troops
will eventually be pulled out. At that time, we must be prepared
for assassins and revolutionaries to begin toppling the present
Middle Eastern regimes. Oil is not going to get cheaper.
Osama bin Laden does have a long-term strategy. I don't
think it has anything to do with imposing revenge for Lebanon.
It has to do with the extension of a Wahabi variety of Islam. We
are in a religious war, even though President Bush has repeatedly
denied this. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/ramadan/islam.html)
Bin Laden is pressuring Muslims to line up on one side or the
other. He does this from the shadows, with videotape as his
means of setting his agenda publicly. So far, the President has
responded to bin Laden's agenda.
The action is the reaction.
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