------
Atrocities may be designed to provoke America into
costly military
adventure
By Robert Fisk
12 September 2001
I can imagine how Osama bin Laden received the news of
the atrocities in
the United States. In all, I must have spent five
hours listening to him
in Sudan and then in the vastness of the Afghan
mountains, as he
described the inevitable collapse of the United
States, just as he and
his comrades in the Afghan war helped to destroy the
power of the Red
Army.
He will have watched satellite television, he will
have sat in the
corner of his room, brushing his teeth as he always
did, with a mishwak
stick, thinking for up to a minute before speaking; he
is one of the few
Arabs who doesn't feel embarrassed to think before he
speaks. He once
told me with pride how his own men had attacked the
Americans in
Somalia. He acknowledged that he knew personally two
of the Saudis
executed for bombing an American military base in
Riyadh. Could he have
been behind yesterday's mass slaughter in America?
Of course, we need a health warning here. If Mr bin
Laden was really
guilty of all the things he has been blamed for, he
would need an army
of 10,000. And there is something deeply disturbing
about the world's
habit of turning to the latest hate figure whenever
blood is shed. But
when events of this momentous scale take place, there
is a new
legitimacy in casting one's eyes at those who have
constantly threatened
America.
Mr bin Laden had a kind of religious experience during
the Afghan war. A
Russian shell had fallen at his feet and, in the
seconds as he waited
for it to explode, he said he had a sudden, religious
feeling of
calmness. The shell and Americans may come to wish
the opposite
happened never exploded. The United States must leave
the Gulf, he
would say every 10 minutes. America must stop all
sanctions against the
Iraqi people. America must stop using Israel to
oppress Palestinians. It
was his constant theme, untouched by doubt or the real
complexities of
the Middle East. He was not fighting an anti-colonial
war, but a
religious one. In the Arabia that he would govern,
there would be more,
not less, head chopping, more severe punishments, no
Western-style
democracy.
His supporters Algerians, Kuwaitis, Egyptians and
Gulf Arabs would
gather round him in his tent with the awe of men
listening to a messiah.
I watched them one night in Afghanistan in a mountain
camp so cold that
I woke to find ice in my hair. They were obedient to
him, not the kind
of obedience of schoolchildren but the sort of
adherence you find among
people whose minds are made up. And the words they
listened to were
fearful in their implications. American civilians
would no more be
spared than military targets. This was not a man who
would hesitate to
carry out his promises if he could. He was a man who
would have
appreciated the appalling irony of creating a missile
defence shield
against "rogue states'' but unable to prevent men
crashing domestic
airliners into the centre of America's financial and
military power.
Yet I also remember one night when Mr bin Laden saw a
pile of newspapers
in my bag and seized upon them. By a sputtering oil
lamp, he read them
page by page in the corner of his tent, clearly
unaware of the world
around him, reading aloud of an Iranian Foreign
Minister's visit to
Saudi Arabia. Was this really a man who could damage
America, who would
have laughed when he heard that the United States had
placed a $5m
(£3.3m) reward on his head? Was it not America, I
wondered then, which
was turning Mr bin Laden into the face of "world
terror?'' Was he really
so powerful and so deadly?
If and we must keep repeating this word if the
shadow of the Middle
East falls over yesterday's destruction, then who else
in the region
could produce such meticulously timed assaults on the
world's only
superpower? The rag-tag and corrupt Palestinian
nationalist groups that
used to favour hijacking are unlikely to be able to
produce a single
suicide bomber. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have neither
the capability nor
the money that this assault needed. Perhaps the old
satellite groups
that moved close to the Lebanese Hezbollah in the
1980s, before the
organisation became a solely resistance movement,
could plan something
like this. The bombing of the US Marines in 1983
needed precision,
timing and infinite planning. But Iran, which
supported these groups,
has changed out of recognition since then, now more
involved in its
internal struggles than in the long-dead aspiration to
"export'' a
religious revolution. Iraq lies broken, its agents
more intent on
torturing their own people than striking at the
country that defeated it
so suddenly in 1991.
So the mountains of Afghanistan will be photographed
from satellite and
high-altitude aircraft in the coming days, Mr bin
Laden's old training
camps and perhaps a few new ones highlighted on the
overhead
projectors in the Pentagon. But to what end? When
America last tried to
strike at Mr bin Laden, it destroyed an innocent
pharmaceuticals plant
in Sudan and a few of Mr bin Laden's Muslim followers
in Afghanistan.
For if this is a war between the Saudi millionaire and
President Bush's
America, it cannot be fought like other wars. Indeed,
can it be fought
at all without some costly military adventure
overseas.
Or is that what Mr bin Laden seeks above all else?
--- from list
postcolonial@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
Spoon Home Page
____________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in/ groups.yahoo.com
Atrocities may be designed to provoke America into
costly military
adventure
By Robert Fisk
12 September 2001
I can imagine how Osama bin Laden received the news of
the atrocities in
the United States. In all, I must have spent five
hours listening to him
in Sudan and then in the vastness of the Afghan
mountains, as he
described the inevitable collapse of the United
States, just as he and
his comrades in the Afghan war helped to destroy the
power of the Red
Army.
He will have watched satellite television, he will
have sat in the
corner of his room, brushing his teeth as he always
did, with a mishwak
stick, thinking for up to a minute before speaking; he
is one of the few
Arabs who doesn't feel embarrassed to think before he
speaks. He once
told me with pride how his own men had attacked the
Americans in
Somalia. He acknowledged that he knew personally two
of the Saudis
executed for bombing an American military base in
Riyadh. Could he have
been behind yesterday's mass slaughter in America?
Of course, we need a health warning here. If Mr bin
Laden was really
guilty of all the things he has been blamed for, he
would need an army
of 10,000. And there is something deeply disturbing
about the world's
habit of turning to the latest hate figure whenever
blood is shed. But
when events of this momentous scale take place, there
is a new
legitimacy in casting one's eyes at those who have
constantly threatened
America.
Mr bin Laden had a kind of religious experience during
the Afghan war. A
Russian shell had fallen at his feet and, in the
seconds as he waited
for it to explode, he said he had a sudden, religious
feeling of
calmness. The shell and Americans may come to wish
the opposite
happened never exploded. The United States must leave
the Gulf, he
would say every 10 minutes. America must stop all
sanctions against the
Iraqi people. America must stop using Israel to
oppress Palestinians. It
was his constant theme, untouched by doubt or the real
complexities of
the Middle East. He was not fighting an anti-colonial
war, but a
religious one. In the Arabia that he would govern,
there would be more,
not less, head chopping, more severe punishments, no
Western-style
democracy.
His supporters Algerians, Kuwaitis, Egyptians and
Gulf Arabs would
gather round him in his tent with the awe of men
listening to a messiah.
I watched them one night in Afghanistan in a mountain
camp so cold that
I woke to find ice in my hair. They were obedient to
him, not the kind
of obedience of schoolchildren but the sort of
adherence you find among
people whose minds are made up. And the words they
listened to were
fearful in their implications. American civilians
would no more be
spared than military targets. This was not a man who
would hesitate to
carry out his promises if he could. He was a man who
would have
appreciated the appalling irony of creating a missile
defence shield
against "rogue states'' but unable to prevent men
crashing domestic
airliners into the centre of America's financial and
military power.
Yet I also remember one night when Mr bin Laden saw a
pile of newspapers
in my bag and seized upon them. By a sputtering oil
lamp, he read them
page by page in the corner of his tent, clearly
unaware of the world
around him, reading aloud of an Iranian Foreign
Minister's visit to
Saudi Arabia. Was this really a man who could damage
America, who would
have laughed when he heard that the United States had
placed a $5m
(£3.3m) reward on his head? Was it not America, I
wondered then, which
was turning Mr bin Laden into the face of "world
terror?'' Was he really
so powerful and so deadly?
If and we must keep repeating this word if the
shadow of the Middle
East falls over yesterday's destruction, then who else
in the region
could produce such meticulously timed assaults on the
world's only
superpower? The rag-tag and corrupt Palestinian
nationalist groups that
used to favour hijacking are unlikely to be able to
produce a single
suicide bomber. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have neither
the capability nor
the money that this assault needed. Perhaps the old
satellite groups
that moved close to the Lebanese Hezbollah in the
1980s, before the
organisation became a solely resistance movement,
could plan something
like this. The bombing of the US Marines in 1983
needed precision,
timing and infinite planning. But Iran, which
supported these groups,
has changed out of recognition since then, now more
involved in its
internal struggles than in the long-dead aspiration to
"export'' a
religious revolution. Iraq lies broken, its agents
more intent on
torturing their own people than striking at the
country that defeated it
so suddenly in 1991.
So the mountains of Afghanistan will be photographed
from satellite and
high-altitude aircraft in the coming days, Mr bin
Laden's old training
camps and perhaps a few new ones highlighted on the
overhead
projectors in the Pentagon. But to what end? When
America last tried to
strike at Mr bin Laden, it destroyed an innocent
pharmaceuticals plant
in Sudan and a few of Mr bin Laden's Muslim followers
in Afghanistan.
For if this is a war between the Saudi millionaire and
President Bush's
America, it cannot be fought like other wars. Indeed,
can it be fought
at all without some costly military adventure
overseas.
Or is that what Mr bin Laden seeks above all else?
--- from list
postcolonial@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
Spoon Home Page
____________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in/ groups.yahoo.com