Return-Path: <sentto-279987-3164-1003551251-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Fri, 19 Oct 2001 21:15:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 32629 invoked by uid 510); 20 Oct 2001 04:13:47 -0000 Received: from n8.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.58) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 20 Oct 2001 04:13:47 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-3164-1003551251-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.1.223] by n8.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 20 Oct 2001 04:14:11 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 20 Oct 2001 04:14:10 -0000 Received: (qmail 69316 invoked from network); 20 Oct 2001 04:14:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by 10.1.1.223 with QMQP; 20 Oct 2001 04:14:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta2 with SMTP; 20 Oct 2001 04:14:09 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id f9K4EEU05899 for iwar@onelist.com; Fri, 19 Oct 2001 21:14:14 -0700 Message-Id: <200110200414.f9K4EEU05899@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 21:14:14 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] [fc:The.Real.Osama] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit The Real Osama World, October 19, 2001 [ 21:35 ] By Ben Macintyre, THE TIMES <http://www.afghan-web.com/aop/today.html (UK) LONDON. What were the crucial influences that turned Osama bin Laden from just another spoilt Saudi playboy into a fanatical mass murderer who is revered by disaffected Muslims? A distant father, a mother denigrated by the rest of the family, and a fierce fundamentalist mentor all played their part. We explore the man behind the myths There is not one Osama bin Laden on the loose in the world, but two. The first is the one he has invented for himself and his followers, the thoroughbred Holy Warrior for Islam, the battle-hardened, soft-voiced guerrilla who has become an idol to thousands, perhaps by now millions, of angry Muslims. The other is the terrorist mastermind of Western creation, the mult-millionaire, semi-lunatic trainer of suicidal killers, an icon of fear and horror. One is larger than life, the other larger than death. There are also two bin Ladens within the chronology of his own lifetime: the first is the pampered Saudi aristocrat brought up by butlers and nursemaids in marbled opulence, a callow youth fonder of nightclubs than prayer; the second a fanatical, ascetic apostle of extremism, rejoicing at the slaughter of American innocents. Somewhere, for some reason ~ or none ~ during his journey from Saudi palace to Afghan cave, the first bin Laden was transformed into the second. But digging out the real man from the layers of myth created by and for him is no easy task, for while the bombs cascade on Afghanistan, the battle of bin Laden's biography is being played out on a wider stage, as his allies and enemies fight to define him for their own purposes. The image bin Laden would project, of his past and his personality, is one of the utmost simplicity: a life of martyrdom ordained by Allah, a logical, linear progression from devout son to Holy Warrior. The truth is more complicated. Armchair psychology is oddly hard work, for there is not insufficient evidence to pronounce with any certainty on the contours of this mind, but enough is known about bin Laden's past to suggest that this is a highly complex and conflicted man, caught between East and West, the ancient and the modern, marked by his childhood, upbringing, education, friends, family and war. He is clever but less than brilliant, charming when it suits, but also vain, humourless, rigid and reclusive. The demonisation of bin Laden by the West is equally onedimensional, and equally misleading: he has been inflated into a fearsome bogeyman, a character of almost superhuman evil, wealth and cunning, the all-powerful magnate of modern terrorism. In fact in many respects he is surprisingly ignorant, impractical and simplistic. He professes hatred for infidels, but is courteous and welcoming to them as individuals. He is obsessed with history, and a habitual self-mythologiser and self-promoter. His al-Qaeda organisation is not the slick, monolithic structure of legend, but plagued by internal feuds and contradictions, not unlike the man himself, whose past offers duelling images: the grinning youth in flares beside the Cadillac and the adult in the turban with the Kalashnikov; the guerrilla supported by the CIA in his fight against the Soviet Union, and now at war with America; the mild university student looking for a subject and the rabid revolutionary who believes only in his own moral rectitude; the medieval figure with a modern mind; the black sheep and the bearded bigot. Like all of us, bin Laden is the product of his experiences, yet his is a uniquely tortured tale, scarred and twisted by the tumultuous events in the Middle East and perhaps rendered murderous by some critical fault line in his own personality. That personality matters, for the terrorist corporation he has created is a highly personal one: driven by his anger, fuelled by his money, shaped by what he has seen and done. The FBI «Most Wanted» Poster for the fugitive is a tantalisingly laconic document. He has many names ~ Osama bin Muhammad bin Laden, alias the Prince, alias the Emir, alias Abu Abdullah, alias Mujahid Sheikh, alias Hajj, alias the Director. The poster records his height (6ft 5in), his colouring and his limp, but as for the myriad other details that fill out a life, it is silent. Finding out what bin Laden is really like may be impossible, since he is likely to end up in a coffin before he ends up on the couch, but his personal history offers a route towards him. In character, as in reality, bin Laden is out there somewhere, in the thickets of myth, supposition and propaganda, and from associates, Western intelligence sources, his family and others, a picture of bin Laden is emerging. It is a measure of the mystery surrounding bin Laden (and the extraordinary number of his relatives) that bogus bin Laden kin, offering to provide inside family knowledge for a fee, have begun to crop up in the Western media. There are many gaps, passages of his life when the trail goes cold, but he has left his spore, the clues to his life, some intentional and some inadvertent, and he can be found. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get your FREE VeriSign guide to security solutions for your web site: encrypting transactions, securing intranets, and more! http://us.click.yahoo.com/UnN2wB/m5_CAA/yigFAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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