Osama Bin Laden
I hope I am right in placing this in Great Debates, although I do not wish to start argument.
I have recently completed reading ‘Through Our Enemies’ Eyes; Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America’ by Anonymous (supposedly a CIA official), rarely have I read such a seminal, paradigm-changing book.
First off though, notice the correct use of the apostrophe for the plural possessive in the title. Let’s hear it for someone who can write in English.
The thesis of this book is simple. We are misreading OBL et al by trying to fit his beliefs, behaviors and intentions into our Western framework of thought. Arabs, and radical Islamists are very, very different from most of us.
When OBL says something like “I want to destroy America,” he really means “I want to destroy America.” He does not mean “I want to hurt America,” or “I want America to change its present course in the Islam/Israel dispute,” nor does he means any other thing. He means what he says.
The author makes the powerful and illustrative comparison to John Brown in American history.
(For my non-American friends, John Brown was an American abolitionist who lived in the American state of Kansas during the run-up to our Civil War. Having decided for religious reasons that the time for talking about slavery was over, he and like-minded people began to slaughter their slave-holding neighbors.
They burned towns, massacred families and sacrificed their own children to The Cause.
Eventually he captured the Federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia where he was captured, tried and executed.)
John Brown failed to free the slaves. But by staging spectacular acts of terrorism, he brought his grievances to the forefront of public debate and so help launch a massive war of cultures that led to his objective, albeit posthumously.
Think of that parallel!
OBL is not a head job (except as you might consider anyone who honestly thinks he is right is a nut). He is not after money or power or any material objective. He is after a victory for God himself as OBL et al sees God.
He really wants things like the return of Spain, central Europe, Israel and Central Asia. The southern Philippines and a hunk of China would be nice too. He wants to pull down the present governments of the region and replaced them with … Well he at least wants to replace them.
While he (and people like him) might be willing to accept less as a tactical victory, real compromise is as unthinkable to OBL as it would have been to John Brown.
A temporary truce might be acceptable, but only as a way-station towards total victory.
OBL’s own life does not matter to him. The same can be said of his followers. He is willing to do really nasty things in order to further a Devine cause. He can be deterred from the use of nukes (or whatever) as God himself has directed that all weapons be used to defend and further the cause of Islam.
He has (as Hitler said about himself) the serenity of a sleepwalker.
(Gee, I am on my third page. I wonder if the board will let me post something so large. In any case, I would welcome your comments.)