The groups associated with [Osama bin Laden] come from diverse places but share a hatred for democracy, a fanatical glorification of violence, and a horrible distortion of their religion to justify the murder of innocents. They have made the United States their adversary precisely because of what we stand for and what we stand against. A few months ago and again this week, bin Laden publicly vowed to wage a terrorist war against America, saying—and I quote—“We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They’re all targets.” Their mission is murder, and their history is bloody. In recent years they killed American, Belgian, and Pakistani peacekeepers in Somalia… This will be a long, ongoing struggle between freedom and fanaticism, between the rule of law and terrorism. We must be prepared to do all that we can for as long as we must. America is and will remain a target of terrorists precisely because we are leaders; because we act to advance peace, democracy and basic human values; because we’re the most open society on earth; and because, as we have shown yet again, we take an uncompromising stand against terrorism.
Before it was destroyed, the al-Shifa plant produced 50 percent of Sudan’s medicine, including 90 percent of the drugs to fight malaria, diarrhea, diabetes, tuberculosis and other treatable diseases, as well as anti-parasitic drugs for livestock. In January 1998, the factory won a $199,000 contract to ship 100,000 cartons of the anti-parasitic drug Shifazole to Iraq under UN sanction. White cartons of the antibiotic were scattered in the rubble.31 After the attack, Sudan was forced to import these drugs at considerable cost. As a result, many thousands of Sudanese civilians would die needlessly.
30. Ibid., Weaver.
Even if the need for a retaliatory attack had been defensible, the quality of intelligence that selected these targets vitiates any claim that the bombing had any connection to justice. It amounted to bombing for its own sake against two of the world’s poorest countries, a true act of terrorism. The only beneficiary was bin Laden. As Dr. Saad al-Fagih told Frontline:
After the American attack on Sudan and Afghanistan it became almost shameful to criticize bin Laden. People inside Saudi Arabia and in other Arab countries were full of anger towards America, and whoever can antagonize America would provide a fulfillment to their desire of discharging their anger. The American strike with the associated remarks by Clinton and American officials proved that bin Laden is a big challenge to America. In the mind of the average Arab and Muslim bin Laden appeared as the man who was able to drive America so crazy that it started shooting haphazardly at unjustified targets….
Those who had reservations of the African bombings thought that this arrogance of the Americans is much worse than the embassy bombings. Their view was that while bin Laden or others can make “executive” mistakes because of their difficult circumstances, logistics and communication, America is not supposed to do this mistake, unless it is done on purpose.32
IN D I C T M E N T
Three months after the embassy bombings, the U.S. District Court (Southern District of New York) brought down an indictment against bin Laden, charging him with conspiracy to kill Americans, among other things. Yet the indictment was a political document, not a legal one, and based on the same guilt-by-association nonsense as Clinton’s address was. The New
York Times description of the indictment makes this clear:
American officials say that so far firsthand evidence that could be used in court to prove that [bin Laden] commanded the bombings has proven difficult to obtain. According to the public record, none of the informants involved in the case have direct knowledge of bin Laden’s involvement. For now, officials say, federal prosecutors appear to be building a case that his violent words and ideas, broadcast from an Afghan cave, incited terrorist acts thousands of miles away. In their war against bin Laden, American officials portray him as the world’s most dangerous terrorist. But reporters for The New York Times and the PBS program Frontline, have found him to be less a commander of terrorists than an inspiration for them… “We can’t say for sure what was going on” with him from 1991 to 1996—most of the years covered in the indictment—one senior official said.33
32. Hunting bin Laden Sept. 13, 2001, op. cit.
33. Tim Weiner, “U.S. Case Against bin Laden in Embasy [sic] Blasts Seems to Rest on Ideas,”
6. American Jihad
99The Times story generally accords with bin Laden’s own interpretation of the bombings, which he articulated in the first of a four-part interview with ABC on Dec. 12, 1998.
ABC NEWS: You have been charged with masterminding the
bombings of the two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Are these charges true?
OSA M A BIN LA D EN: Praise be to God, the Cherisher and Sustainer
of the Worlds. Peace and blessings be upon Prophet Muhammad, his companions and his kin. Let me begin by stating that we, in the World Islamic Front for jihad against Jews and Crusaders, have, by the grace of God Almighty, issued a crystal clear fatwah calling on the Nation to carry on jihad aimed at liberating Islamic holy sites, and the Ancient House (The Holy Ka’aba), and Al-Aqsa Mosque and all Islamic lands. By the grace of God, Praise and Glory be to him; this Nation, the Nation of Muhammad, God’s peace and blessings be upon him, has responded to this appeal and this instigation. We will continue this course because it is a part of our religion, and because God, Praise and Glory be to him, ordered us to carry out jihad so that the word of God may remain exalted to the heights. If the instigation for jihad against the Jews and the Americans, in order to liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Holy Ka’aba, is considered a crime, let history be a witness that I am a criminal.
ABC NEWS: You warned that Americans would die. Then, two
months later, the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar As Salaam were bombed. Were these bombings because of your fatwah (decree) against America?
BIN LA D EN: By the Grace of God, Praise and Glory be to him, we
have repeatedly issued warnings over a number of years. Following these warnings and these calls, anti-American explosions took place in a number of Islamic countries. Most probably, these acts came about as a result of such calls and warnings. But only God knows the truth.
ABC NEWS: If the targets of jihads are Americans, how can the
deaths of so many Africans be justified?
BIN LA D EN: This question pre-supposes that it is me who carried out
these explosions. My answer is that I understand the motives of the brothers who carry out acts of jihad against the enemies of the nation, namely the Americans and their supporters… [R]adio reports said that most of those killed were members of the American Embassy in Nairobi, which housed the largest CIA center in the African continent. We do understand what happened. Many people were saddened by the death of some innocent people outside the embassy building.34
The day after the bombings, Sheikh Omar Barkri, bin Laden’s spokesman in London, gave an interview to Knight-Ridder Newspapers in which he said bin Laden had no connection to The Islamic Army for Liberating the Holy Sites, the group that claimed responsibility for the bombings: “Bin Laden was not the mastermind behind it. This was definitely not one of his projects. He endorsed it, but he did not order it. He is not a coward. If he had ordered this, he would take responsibility for it… This is a new group, and you can expect a lot of freelance groups to come up. But it is not a bin Laden organization.”35 On Oct. 13, 2000, the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole was docked in Aden to refuel en route to the Persian Gulf. At 12:15 p.m., a small harbour boat armed with explosives was steered into its side. The ship, built to withstand a pressure of 51,000 pounds per square inch, sustained a 30 x 40 foot gaping hole, and extensive flooding. Seventeen sailors were killed and 39 were injured. The response was predictable: Clinton and other administration officials denounced the attackers as “cowardly,” vowed revenge, and tried to link the bombing to bin Laden. According to CNN: “The officials said the evidence suggests some suspects in the Cole attack… were in contact with bin Laden operatives in East Africa. The officials would not be more specific.”36
In contrast, the BBC offered sober speculation on bin Laden’s involvement and took what might be called a swipe at the U.S. obsession:
Kuwait’s respected newspaper, Al-Rai al-Aam, printed an alleged telephone conversation with Mr. Bin Laden. The paper quotes him as saying that neither he nor his followers have any intention of striking civil or military installations in any Arab country. The world of militant Islamists is a shadowy and confusing one with no shortage of fanatics prepared to die in order to strike at U.S. and Israeli interests. If Osama bin Laden’s denial is confirmed, it removes the most obvious suspect and makes the job of U.S. detectives that much harder.37
By the time of the Cole bombing, bin Laden had spent two years on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s “10 Most-Wanted” list and been placed under criminal indictment without benefit of evidence. Yet just eight years earlier he did not even register on the U.S. terrorist radar. These years span the entire presidency of Bill Clinton, who is responsible for turning bin Laden into a demonized celebrity.
Larry Johnson, deputy director of the U.S. State Department Office of Counterterrorism (1989-1993), explained the folly of the Clinton administration’s response to bin Laden:
35. Joyce M. Davis, “Bin Laden asks Muslims worldwide to retaliate against the United States,” The Charlotte Observer, Aug. 22, 1998.
36. “U.S. finds link between bin Laden and Cole bombing,” CNN, Dec. 7, 2000. 37. Frank Gardner, “Bin Laden ‘denies’ Yemen blast,”, BBC News, Nov. 13.
6. American Jihad
101They’re grossly exaggerating the problem. They are hyping it… Instead of saying “terrorism’s rising,” (it’s not); “Terrorism is spreading,” (it’s not); “More people are dying from terrorism,” (not the case); they should be saying: “There’s one individual out there that really doesn’t like us, and he’s made it his mission in life to kill Americans, and we’ve gotta deal with him.” But we need to have a voice of reason in that process instead of putting ourselves out crying “wolf,” because this is essentially what’s taking place right now. They call it “the administration that cries ‘wolf.’”38
One month after the Cole bombing, Clinton’s reign expired, and his successor, former Texas Governor George W. Bush, would intensify the U.S. obsession with bin Laden. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 bombings, government spokesmen and media pundits routinely spoke of “before Sept 11/after Sept. 11,” and “the first war of the 21st century” as if the old world had ended, and in its place arose a new world in which traditional certainties and moral beliefs no longer applied.
The dropping of the atomic bomb, the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the rise of the WorldWideWeb are three events that can be said to have changed the world, because each brought about fundamental, permanent change to our moral and political frame of reference. The Sept. 11 bombings did not. These attacks, and Bush’s subsequent bombardment of Afghanistan, merely continued and exacerbated a pattern of behavior that Clinton started:
• Blame bin Laden for any attack against Americans; • Denigrate him and his followers as evil and cowardly;
• Portray the attacks as a senseless assault on democracy and the American way of life;
• Fuel public hatred for Islam;
• Use that hatred to justify an attack on Afghanistan;
• Blacken the U.S. already bad reputation in the Arab world; and • Enhance bin Laden’s prestige.
This paradigm represents the essential dynamic of the “war on terrorism:” demonization of Arabs and Muslims fuels popular and political consent for militarism; militarism fuels attacks against the U.S.; and these attacks fuel even more militarism.
38. “Interview with Larry Johnson,” Frontline—Hunting bin Laden, PBS, Sept. 13, 2001. The Bush administration would turn gross exaggerations of terrorist threats and crying “wolf” into official official government policy and a re-election platform.
SU M M A RY
So far, we have seen how the geopolitical conditions that led to Bush’s attack on Afghanistan can be traced to events in the 1970s. The U.S.’ willful blindness about Shah Reza Pahlevi’s rule and subsequent support for him in exile provoked the February 1979 Shi’ite Revolution in Iran. The loss of the Iranian foothold caused the Carter administration to disregard its own intelligence, overreact to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and fund the mujahedin. Meanwhile, Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shi’ite revolution led the U.S. to prod Iraqi president Saddam Hussein into attacking Iran.
The ensuing and inconclusive Iran-Iraq War left Iraq devastated and in dire need of money to rebuild. Kuwait’s refusal to adhere to production quotas depressed the world price of oil, thus provoking Hussein. His decision to mobilize Iraqi forces for an attack on Kuwait unnerved Saudi Arabia, and gave the U.S. a pretext to base troops on the peninsula. This act, more than any other, turned Osama bin Laden into an anti-Saudi/anti-U.S. mujahid, although the effect would not be felt immediately.
From May 1996, when bin Laden issued his Declaration on War until the embassy bombings of August 1998, the U.S. still hardly noticed him. After the bombings, capturing or killing bin Laden became the top priority; the pipeline would have to wait until the Taliban could be ousted. Thus began the absurd scenario of the U.S. allying itself with the very people it wanted the Taliban to defeat.
When George W. Bush came to the White House under questionable circumstances, the U.S. changed priorities again. Despite the rhetoric about the “war on drugs” and the “war on terrorism,” oil was back on top. From February to August 2001, the U.S. government did everything possible not to offend the Taliban. The FBI’s investigations into bin Laden’s role in the USS
Cole bombing were obstructed, and field reports of suspicious Arab flight
school students were ignored.
In August 2001, U.S. coercion failed, and the decision to bomb Afghanistan into submission was set in motion. The Sept 11 attack provided the ideal casus belli, and the pre-existing demonized imagery of Osama bin Laden, Arabs and Islam made the bombing politically acceptable.
To appreciate how the U.S. government could behave with such wanton disregard for the rule of law and human decency, a philosophical digression into the origins of this warped mindset is required.