Does he absolutely believe he’s the righteous underdog, A male Joan of Ark without the visions of sorts, I suppose. And thus, he feels that any deaths caused are simply sent to heaven or hell a little early and are of no consequence? If so, why did the deaths in Lebanon disturb him? Does it make him angry and arrogant?
Why did he not seek a diplomatic solution? His family had strong ties to the Saudi royal family, is rich and had some political connections in the U.S. Couldn’t he have used his wits and considerable personal fortune to lobby for his objectives?
Or is he a pragmatic who believes terrorism is simply a more effective solution (time or value-wise) and he is cold enough to not care about the casualties enough to deter him?
In most other countries, we hold the view that all life is sacred, even if we don’t like some people, their lives have as much value as our own. Middle Eastern terrorists are taught that westerners are “infidels” and God actually wants them to kill us. They are also told that they will have a special reward in heaven for sacrificing themselves in the name of the greater good. This is why they have such a blatant disregard for their own lives.
Israel used to be Palestine, but was given over to the Jews after WWII byt the League of Nations (sort of a precursor to the UN) because they had no state of their own. Both the arabs and the Jews regard Israel/Palestine as their “holy land”, and there has been fighting over it pretty much since the dawn of time (the Crusades, etc). The fanatical Palestines (and I’m not sure what percentage of the population this is) are determined at all costs to take back their holy land, and view it as a sacred quest of sorts. What does all this have to do with the United States? The US gives a lot of equipment (fighter planes, tanks, weapons, etc) to the Israelis, and this is one of the major beefs the arabs have with the US, who they see as “meddlers”. Osama bin Laden has made references to the “Zionists” (Israel) in his messages, and has made it clear that one of his main objectives is to get the US to end their support to the Jews. Why not diplomatic channels? I don’t know, Osama has considerable wealth and family connections. My guess is that to acheive his objective, the Jewish state would pretty much have to be entirely annihlated. And no country in the world is going to condone that. The constant peace talks in the middle east are very frustrating to the arabs. The fanatics will not be satisfied with another little sliver of land, the only thing that’s going to make them happy is all the Jews (whom they view as their opressors) gone from their country.
“It is a misconception to think people like Bin Laden, or Stalin, or Marat from the French Revolution Era, are driven by their ideals to such extreme measures as murder. Actually it is the other way around. People don’t become mass-murderers, political or otherwise, unless they like murder in the first place.”
The demographic explanation of “youth bulges” as explained by Gunnar Heinsohn. In a nutshell, he says that Bin Laden, as other terrorist leaders, would be nothing without a power base of demographically superfluous young men, the result of high birth rates in the preceding 20 years, young men looking for a “raison d’etre” and their parents allowing them to go off to war because they’ve got a couple more sons to spare.
Heinsons demographic statistics explain, and predict, with chilling accuracy, which countries and era’s are likely to have political instability. Then all it takes is a focal point, a spark, like Bin Laden to make things explode.
If you are interested in what seems to be a fairly well researched source on bin Laden, his family, and the interaction between the two, I’d like to recommend this Fresh Air with Steve Coll, author of the book, The Bin Ladens.
I’d also recommend The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. The book details not just bin Laden’s history, but that of his associates and the overall rise of islamic extremism in the past 50 years or so. Very well done.
Based on his published writings, bin Laden is a man with a vision – in his case, a vision of a united Islamic Caliphate that would emerge as the world’s new superpower, like it was in the Middle Ages. Everything he does is conceived as advancing that end. He would even provoke a world war – because he’s convinced Islam would win it. That is what makes him.