[iwar] [fc:OpEd:.Not.Who.You.Think]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-28 13:59:22
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OpEd: Not Who You Think
By Stanley Bedlington

Sunday, October 28, 2001; Page B01 

Nobody who has seen it forgets the image of the man on the video: the
apparently indomitable Arab veteran seated at the mouth of a cave,
deriding Americans -- "the cowards of this age" -- for being "full of
fear" while threatening further violence against them. But for a man of
such belligerent words, Osama bin Laden is no fighter, nor of course are
the inhospitable caves and mountain retreats of Afghanistan his true
home. The release of the video, as well as the publication of numerous
staged photographs of the terrorist leader in military fatigues,
crouching on one knee and pointing his AK-47 at an unseen target,
reflect his desire to build up a myth of himself as a warrior.

CIA operatives, who ran the covert campaign to arm the mujaheddin, or
guerrilla forces, against the Soviets in the 1980s, tell another story:
The Arab volunteers bin Laden joined made no great contribution to the
battle; the fighting fell mainly to the Afghans. At best, CIA operatives
say, bin Laden may have fired a few rounds in self-defense. They attest
instead to the wealthy Saudi exile's proclivity for the role he plays
today -- which has been to raise money and use it to provide
construction equipment and logistics and to fund and advance his
terrorist campaign.

It has become increasingly clear to me, ever since the threat bin Laden
poses first came to my attention in the late '80s, that he is bent on
enhancing his reputation by building myths about himself that will
appeal to his followers. Puncturing those myths -- both to enhance our
own understanding of what we are up against in the current war against
and to enlighten the people over whom bin Laden holds sway -- is the
skill we must now develop. For while the man who is now America's Most
Wanted would like to be seen as an indomitable warlord, there can be
little doubt that he is really a master of planning, and that his
ambitions are limitless. His modus operandi is already far too familiar:
He devises an attack, then provides guidance about the timing and
location, but otherwise remains aloof from danger. That's why I call him
a "facilitator" -- a description that echoes one of bin Laden's
preferred code names, "The Contractor."

In trying to understand bin Laden's intentions, the CIA's goal has
always been to assess where he fits within the political and religious
power structures of the region. By the mid-1980s, he had already made a
name for himself by helping to fund the anti-Soviet fighters in
Afghanistan. But when he returned to Saudi Arabia in 1989, though
initially treated like a hero, he soon fell foul of the religious
establishment for criticizing its lack of devotion. After fleeing to
Sudan in 1991, he collaborated with the National Islamic Front -- an
organization that combines radical Islamist politics with ruthless
violence, although its activities there have recently been curbed. But
it was after the Persian Gulf War that bin Laden came into view on the
CIA counterterrorist center's radar screen, as he began building
training camps in Sudan for extremists from all over the Muslim world.
We watched as he melded front organizations into what became al Qaeda --
his international network of terrorist groups and their support cells. 

One of bin Laden's strategies has been to mix his real motivations with
goals designed to appeal to wide swaths of disaffected Muslims. He has
talked for several years about his desire to expel U.S. forces from
Saudi Arabia, and has expressed real anger at the pollution of that
country's holiest sites -- Mecca and Medina -- by the presence in the
region during the Persian Gulf War of hundreds of thousands of
non-Muslims. More recently, he has spoken out about the plight of
Palestinians, but I believe he has done so out of expediency, seeing in
the Palestinian cause a means of attracting new Muslim recruits.
Together, these issues provide bin Laden with a potent rallying cry.

Although these objectives spur on his actions, bin Laden's ambitions --
both personal and social -- are greater. Based on his own statements and
those of his close associates, bin Laden wants to be portrayed in the
Islamic world as a latter-day caliph, or supreme ruler, in the image of
the Prophet Muhammad's successors -- a figure who can unite all of
Islam. The title not only evokes historic Islamic power but also
underlies his grand strategy of bringing together as many terrorist
groups as possible, giving him, as the word al Qaeda implies, a "base"
from which to spread his influence.

But perhaps just as important as his egotism is bin Laden's ardent
desire to halt the flood of American popular culture into the Islamic
world. Echoing the inflammatory anti-Western writings of extremists such
as Syed Qutb, an Egyptian who gained prominence in the early 1960s, and
Maulana Abu Ala Maududi, a Pakistani who continued to be active into the
'70s, bin Laden believes that the United States is the "Great Satan." He
sees Islam under assault from a rising tide of secularized modernity led
by America and by corrupt Arab governments and monarchies.

That is not to suggest that bin Laden is in tune with the beliefs of
modern Islam. Having lived in Muslim countries for almost 20 years, I
know that, by choosing to obey and enforce the harsh laws of Pashtun
village elders, bin Laden and his Taliban comrades are divorcing
themselves from the majority of Muslims. He finds company instead in a
line of extremists dating back to the Kharijites, who emerged within
decades of the Prophet Mohammed's death. For while the scale of bin
Laden's violence may be unprecedented, his philosophy of violence is
nothing new. Echoing the words of George Habbash, former leader of the
terrorist group known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine, who warned several years ago that "in this war, no one is
neutral, no one is innocent," bin Laden recently said that "in the name
of retaliation there are no innocents." 

It comes as no surprise then to see bin Laden readily abjure the
religious mainstream, as did the extremists who came before him. His
thinking reflects that of Syed Qutb, who shaped himself in the Kharijite
mold and attacked the United States during the 1960s for propagating
"that crass and vacuous materialistic perception of life; that animal
freedom called permissiveness; that slave market dubbed women's
liberation." Beliefs such as these are focal to bin Laden's thinking.

He thus juxtaposes his jihad, or holy war, against the United States
with the Crusades. In his fatwa issued in February 1998, bin Laden
specifically invoked the term jihad as the collective duty of the entire
Islamic ummat -- the worldwide community of Muslims -- summoning his
followers to perform jihad against both Christianity and Judaism. But
both of these religions are described in sacred Islamic texts as Ahl
Al-Kitab, or "People of the Book" -- that is, as communities that have
received revelation from God in scriptures, and who must be treated with
respect. To mount an attack against them is antithetical to the
teachings of the Koran.

Once again, then, bin Laden has defiled his own religion in pursuit of
his grand strategy, creating his own myth of jihad and ignoring the
teachings of the Koran when it suits him. Even in the heat of battle,
Islam requires that certain moral inhibitions must be maintained: "Fight
in the cause of God those who fight you," the Koran demands, "but do not
transgress limits, for God loves not the transgressor." In other words,
a Muslim can fight back provided it is in defense of Islam, but the
indiscriminate slaughter of innocents, whether Muslims or non-Muslims,
is not permissible. Compare these to bin Laden's own religious rules:
"We do not differentiate between . . . military and civilians." All
Americans are targets according to the terms of his fatwa.

The willingness of bin Laden to transgress strict Koranic injunctions is
seemingly boundless. If there were any question about whether he
believes the ends of his strategy justify his means, his fascination
with weapons of mass destruction should lay it to rest. Whether or not
the current anthrax infections prove to have been perpetrated by al
Qaeda supporters on the orders of bin Laden, there is no doubt that he
has often demonstrated his proclivity for wholesale slaughter. Experts
on Afghanistan have strong evidence to show that at one secret
laboratory at the Abu Shahab camp in Afghanistan, research has been
conducted on chemical and nerve gases. The State Department's latest
annual report on international terrorism states that al Qaeda "continues
to seek chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear capabilities."

It is in this willingness to create his own myths, to endorse mass
murder as part of his jihad, that bin Laden's Achilles' heel may lie. He
expressed no remorse for the Muslims killed on Sept. 11. Perhaps, he
sees them as Westernized moderates standing in the way of his ambitions.
But his horrendous acts sadden and anger the majority of Muslims around
the world. They are infuriated to see bin Laden treat violence as an
integral part of Islam, almost as a sixth Pillar of the Faith. And they
shudder at his willingness to mold Islamic thinking to suit his own
goals, seeing in it the risks of his achieving the title of caliph and
thereby wielding immense political power.

There is no precedent, no authority in Islam for the slaughter bin Laden
perpetrated on that bright September morning. His death may yet be
within reach of American forces overseas, but the downfall of his
philosophy of terror may lie in the hope that people increasingly see
through the myth of religiously sanctioned invincibility that bin Laden
has woven around himself.

Stanley Bedlington studied Osama bin Laden as a senior analyst at the
CIA's counterterrorism center, where he worked from 1978 until 1994. He
is currently a consultant on Middle East affairs.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

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