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To: JIHAD JOE
"Bin Laden is a true believer and a funder of Islamic causes, rather than a planner and active participant," says Professor Shibley Telhani, a Middle East scholar from the University of Maryland who has followed his career. "His real influence is not as a mastermind of terrorism but as a person who is using a personal fortune to encourage others to wage war against the American interests in the Middle East he finds so objectionable."

Correct. OBL was a PR/recruitment guy, not a military mastermind. Saddam is the military mastermind. However, this is not to say OBL was simply a bit player. The establishment of a pool of would-be human missiles represents a military revolution of comparable significance to the development of the ICBM. Most of the dummies who call themselves analysts (the jokers at Stratfor and The Economist, for instance) are too thick to pick up on this, but the import of this breakthrough was not lost on Saddam Hussein. He's never wanted for the Vision Thing, let us give him that.

11 posted on 09/15/2002 12:10:52 AM PDT by The Great Satan
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To: The Great Satan
Saddam is the military mastermind.

Here we go again. Can you give me one example of his military genius? What I saw in Iran and Kuwait were screwups both militarily and strategically.

I'll admit this to the poster of the article though. When I first heard the Bin Laden did it explanation after 9/11, I asked myself proof? I didn't hear much then and haven't heard much since. So my theory was that these guys self-organized. They didn't need Bin Laden and they didn't need Saddam, all they needed was some planning and some money (and not really much of either).

I have no proof for my theory, but it fits one fact very well, the fact that 9/11 wasn't uncovered in time to be prevented. Any planning or support involvement from overseas like from Bin Laden would have been intercepted. We allegedly tapped his cellphone and I think we would have intercepted other communication as well.

14 posted on 09/15/2002 12:29:53 AM PDT by palmer
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