Osama Bin Laden denies being responsible for the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.
If he is responsible, and he is doing this as a holy war, why does he lie? How could he justify lying about it to his followers? If he is morally right in his own opinion, why doesn’t he take responsiblity?
(Topic listed in IMHO, because unless OBL joins us to explain his thinking, I guess we’re going to be lacking a factual answer, but I would like to know what others think the answers are to these questions.)
Because Islamics in general would turn against him.
Really only he and a relatively small faction of “radical islamics” are the problem. The Taliban controls Afghanistan, which is peopled with predominantly far more moderate, or “true” Islamics.
Right now, most of the moderates, if not actively on the bandwagon, have been told (in Afghanistan’s deliberately information-poor countryside) that bin Laden is a hero.
If he sticks to his guns and says “Nah, wasn’t me”, then the US, the Great Satan, is seen as the evildoer, for attacking and possibly “murdering” their “hero”.
However, the majority of moderates are not so stupid that bin Laden can get away with “Yeah, I did it, what’cha gonna do about it?” For that would reveal him to be the criminal he is, as Islam actually does NOT condone murder and terrorism.
That’d be on the same level as Saddam Hussein telling the Iraqui people “You know, it’s not the United States’ fault you’re all sick, hungry and poor. I’ve been siphoning off all that oil and aid money to fund palaces, mistresses and biological weaponry. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo.”