With the U.S. forces lingering in Saudi Arabia five years after the end of hostilities, the time had come to “liberate” the land of the holy sites from “infidel” occupation. Bin Laden’s depiction of the brutal friendship and the dependent nature of the Saudi regime was spot on:
The crusader forces became the main cause of our disastrous condition, particularly in the economical aspect of it due to the unjustified heavy spending on these forces. As a result of the policy imposed on the country, especially in the field of oil industry where production is restricted or expanded and prices are fixed to suit the American economy ignoring the economy of the country. Expensive deals were imposed on the country to purchase arms. People are asking, “What is the justification for the very existence of the regime, then?”19
Had the U.S. removed its military from Saudi Arabia as promised, the Riyadh and Khobar bombings would not have occurred; the Declaration of
War would not have been issued; and Osama bin Laden would be just an
Islamist with a big bank account.
Of course, this scenario is utterly implausible. As we know, the U.S. did not send in its military to defend Saudi Arabia against a putative Iraqi threat, but to establish a military presence to safeguard access to Persian Gulf oil. Even if the U.S. had the ability to respect and appreciate Islamic sensitivities, paranoia and economic self-interest precluded it from appreciating the disaster to come. Thus the Riyadh and Khobar bombings—or bombings like them—were inevitable.
Notwithstanding the substance of bin Laden’s case against the U.S. “occupation,” the bellicose language in the Declaration of War was enough to convince Americans that bin Laden was a maniac, and that Islam was a religion of violent fanatics. These anti-Muslim stereotypes were set in rhetorical granite on Feb. 23, 1998, when the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper published a fax signed by bin Laden and four others on behalf of a group calling itself the World Islamic Front. In the statement, the signatories present a fatwah against the United States that concluded:
All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims…. On that basis, and in compliance with God’s order, we issue the following fatwah to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim
18. The Qana massacre, Ibid. 19. Declaration, op. cit.
6. American Jihad
93who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim….20
The fatwah foreclosed any possibility that U.S. attitudes towards the Persian Gulf and Islamists would be governed by diplomacy. The most damning aspect of the fatwah was not its message but its language, especially the invocation to kill American civilians. When the U.S. commits violence in its own name or in the name of Israel, it employs euphemisms like “defending democracy,” “liberation,” “fighting terrorism” or “rolling-back communism.” Islamists, though, don’t share this squeamishness for honest, violent speech. They are candid about what they intend to do, but by eschewing euphemism, bin Laden and his followers placed themselves beyond the pale of polite, “civilized” society and became depicted as “evil.” By the same token, the perceived legitimacy of the U.S. was dramatically enhanced. If bin Laden did not exist, the U.S. would have had to invent him.
Yet the issue of good and evil is moot. The number of Muslims killed by the polite terrorism of the U.S. and Israel far exceeds the number of Israelis and Americans killed by the Islamists’ impolite terrorism. Nevertheless, bin Laden would henceforth be damned because of what he said, more than for any specific act he may have committed.
TH E E M B A S S Y B O M B I N G S
On the morning of Friday, Aug. 7, 1998, a truck bomb exploded in a parking lot at the rear of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. The blast killed 213 people, including 44 embassy employees—12 Americans and 32 Kenyans. Ten Americans and 11 Kenyans were seriously injured. An estimated 200 Kenyan civilians were killed and 4,000 were injured by the blast in the vicinity of the embassy.
Nine minutes later, another truck bomb exploded in the U.S. embassy in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. No Americans were among the 11 killed, but many were among the 85 injured. In all, the two blasts killed 243 people, injured more than 4,000, and caused serious damage to buildings in the compounds and the surrounding areas. Both U.S. chanceries withstood the blasts but were rendered unusable.21
This time, though, the U.S. was not content simply to utter denunciations. Despite having no physical evidence to link bin Laden to the attacks, Clinton selected two sites allegedly affiliated with him to receive
20. “Bin-Laden, Others Sign Fatwa To ‘Kill Americans’ Everywhere,” Al-Quds al-Arabi, reprinted in English by ERRI, Feb. 23, 1998, <www.emergency.com/bladen98.htm>.
21. Report of the Accountability Review Boards on the Embassy Bombings in Nairobi and Dar-
es-Salaam on Aug. 7, 1998 <www.terrorism.com/state/accountability_report.html>; James C.
McKinley Jr., “Security Flaws Left Nairobi Embassy Open to Attack,” New York Times, Sept. 9, 1998.
America’s wrath—one in Afghanistan, one in Sudan. As a former U.S. intelligence official put it: “It was all rather biblical. The president was very specific: he wanted two targets for the two embassies that were bombed.”22
On Aug. 20, within hours of the U.S. reprisal attacks, Clinton addressed the nation to explain what was done and why. The speech consists of three interwoven justifications that betray not only the political and moral baselessness of the reprisals—and the “war on terrorism” in general—but also the moral and political validity of bin Laden’s Declaration of War.