Bin Laden no longer exists: Here is why

Arab News (In English) ^ | 5 July 2002 | By Amir Taheri, Arab News Staff

[shrinkermd]

Remember you first read it here: Osama Bin Laden is dead.

The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the runaway died on Dec. 5, 2001 and buried the same day in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. A few days later Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf echoed the information. This month an Al-Qaeda leader, held by the Americans, confirmed the news. The remnants of Osama’s gang, however, remained silent, either because they have no means of communication or to keep his ghost alive.

The first denial of Osama’s death came from one of his half brothers who claimed that the self-styled Mujahed was alive. The same half brother, however, went out of his way to deny that he or their mother had contact with the fugitive. The next denial came in a possibly fake videotape in which a Kuwaiti associate of Bin Laden claims that “ the sheikh” is alive and in good health.

So, how could we be sure that Bin Laden is dead?

Of course, we cannot produce the body or pinpoint the grave. What we have in mind is Bin Laden’s death as a political operator.

With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama Bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long. He had always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. So, would he remain silent for nine months during which his illusions have been shattered one after another? If his adjutants can smuggle a video to Al-Jazeera in Qatar, why couldn’t he?

Even if he were still alive physically, Bin Laden is dead politically. He may live some more years in the hide-outs of the tribal zone in Pakistan just as some Nazi fugitives survived in the remote areas of Argentina and Paraguay.

Bin Laden is the known face of a particular brand of politics that committed suicide in New York and Washington on Sept.11, 2001, killing thousands of innocent people in the process.

What were the key elements in that system?

The first was a cynical misinterpretation of Islam that began decades ago by such romantic-idealists as the Pakistani Abul-Ala Maudoodi and the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb. Although Maudoodi and Qutb were not serious thinkers, they could, at least offer a coherent ideology based on a narrow reading of the Islamic texts. Their ideas, distilled down to Bin Laden, became mere slogans designed to incite zealots to murder.

People like Maudoodi and Qutb could catch the ball and run largely because most Muslim intellectuals did not deem it necessary to continue the work of Muslim philosophers. Modern Muslim intellectuals, seduced by fashionable Western ideologies, left the new urban masses of Islam’s teeming cities exposed to the half-baked ideas that Maudoodi and Qutb peddled. In time, Maudoodo-Qutbism provided the ideological topos in which Bin Ladenism could grow.

Now, however, many Muslim intellectuals are returning home, so to speak. They are rediscovering Islam’s philosophical heritage and beginning to continue the work started by pioneers of Islamic political thought over 1,000 years ago. Paradoxically, it is Maudoodo-Qutbism that is now being exposed as a pseudo-Islamic version of Western totalitarian ideologies.

The second element that made Bin Laden possible was easy money, largely coming from wealthy individuals, mostly in the Gulf area, who believed that by giving for “the cause” they were not only buying a place in the hereafter but also protecting themselves against “accidents” in this world. Some paid because they believed they were helping poor and oppressed Muslims. Others paid so that militants would go and spend their energies somewhere else.

That easy money is no longer available, at least not in large quantities. Many donors have realized that they had been financing a terror organization all along. Some have been forced to choose between the West, where they have the bulk of their wealth, and the troglodyte Mujaheds of the Hindukush.

The third element that made Bin Ladenist terror possible was the encouraging, or at least complacent, attitude of several governments. The Taleban in Afghanistan began by hosting Bin Laden and ended up becoming his life-and-death buddies. The Pakistanis were also supportive because they wanted to dominate Afghanistan and make life hard for the Indians by sending holy warriors to Kashmir. The Sudanese government was also sympathetic, if not actually supportive, and offered at least a safe haven. This was also the case in Yemen where in November 2000 this writer accidentally ran into a crowd of Al-Qaeda militants who had flown from Pakistan for a gathering.

We now know that Al-Qaeda cells operated, often quite openly, in more than a dozen other Muslim countries — from Indonesia and Malaysia to Morocco and Tunisia, without being bothered by anyone.

The fall of the Taleban means that the gang no longer has a sure base and hide-out. All the other countries are now also closed, and in some cases, even hostile to the Bin Laden gang.

The fourth element was the cynical attitude of many Western powers that sheltered the terrorists in the name of freedom of expression and dissent. We now know that London was the world capital of Al-Qaeda and that New York was its financial nerve center.

The murder of the Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Shah Masood, for example, was planned in the British capital. Al-Qaeda militants operated in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, among other democracies, without any restraint.

The fifth element that made Bin Ladenism possible was the West’s, especially America’s, perceived weakness if not actual cowardice. A joke going round the militant Islamist circles until last year was that the only thing the Americans would do if attacked was to sue the attackers in court. That element no longer exists. The Americans, supported by the largest coalition in history, have shown that they are prepared to use force against their enemies even if that means a long war with no easy victory in sight.

The sixth element of Bin Ladenism was the illusion in most Western nations that they could somehow remain unaffected by the violence unleashed by fanatical terrorists against so many Muslim nations — from Indonesia to Algeria. That illusion was shattered by the Sept. 11 attacks. Americans now know that they are vulnerable to the same kind of terrorism that has caused so much tragedy for the people of Algeria, to cite just one example, in the past decade.

Bin Laden could survive and prosper only in a world in which the six elements just mentioned remained in force. That world no longer exists: thus Osama Bin Laden no longer exists.

His ghost may continue to linger on, partly because Washington and Islamabad, among others, find it useful to keep it in the headlines for a while. Bush still has an election to win next November and Musharraf is keen to keep his country in the limelight as long as possible.

But the truth is that Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Remember you first read it here.

[Maelstrom]

Osama bin Laden is dead.

I know because God told me so.

I even know how he died. He died in his bed, pissing blood, alone, in darkness (I think it was night).

Maelstrom

[First_Salute]

That quote sounds familiar.

Back when the Red Chinese jet fighter was shot down by our stealth EP-3 ...

Oh yeah, somebody here posted some insider comments by the Red Chinese, that they actually, behind Bubba's back, regarded him the very [3rd?] way:

"A joke going round the [military] circles until last year was that the only thing the Americans would do if attacked was to sue the attackers in court."

[First_Salute]

Bump - R22.

[usconservative]

I even know how he died. He died in his bed, pissing blood, alone, in darkness (I think it was night).

It wasn't night - his cave had been sealed during the bombing campaign.

[No Truce With Kings]

Yet there are a large number of people -- including freepers -- who still think these losers are ten-feet-tall, bulletproof, and capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

Bin Laden has been marginalized to insignificance, his organization has been reduced to using misfits like Padilla and the shoe bomber because they have clean passports, and much of the public believes we are losing the war.

Go figure.

[Adrastus]

I hope you are right. The only thing I would add to your scenario is the great scalding pain as his kidneys failed. This SOB needs to die, certainly, but with great attention to detail. Blu-82s are too fast for the likes of this vermin.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[section9]

Bin Laden has been marginalized to insignificance, his organization has been reduced to using misfits like Padilla and the shoe bomber because they have clean passports, and much of the public believes we are losing the war.

I have suspected that Bin Laden is dead for some time. However, Al-Zawahiri is most certainly alive, as is the Kuwaiti logistics operative whose name escapes me now.

The head is still on the snake. How and ever, the time will come when the AQ can hide Bin Laden's death no more. News of his death will not help morale in the outlying cell units.

Remember one last thing. Most AQ who went through the training camps were assigned to be infantrymen attached to Taliban brigades. The "Arab Afghans" were there to stiffen the resolve of the Talibani. Many of them died at the hands of the B-52 and the Daisy Cutter at places like Mazer-i-Sharif and Tora Bora.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[jdogbearhunter]

Well put.

BUMP

[general_re]

This is Arab News, and for the most part they got it right. I am going to lie down.

The feeling will pass - tomorrow is the final part of their five-part series entitled "Jews - Should We Kill Them All, or Merely Enslave Them?"

[harpseal]

From Roman times it has been true "Vis pacem,para bellum.">/I>

Percieved weekness causes war.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[Mr. Thorne]

If you would have peace, be then prepared for war.

Appius Claudius
Rome

[harpseal]

As I remember my Latin
"Vis" = If you look for.
Pacem = Peace

I was not translating per se merely summarizing and concluding.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktyown

[Mr. Thorne]

And I was not correcting, merely adding on. That is to say, apparently more than one Roman statesman/general had similar thoughts...

Forgive the misunderstanding...

[phasma proeliator]

"One swallow does not make a summer, however. "

ROTFLMAO! Seriously!

[Stultis]

Amir Taheri, (if he is the same one) has also published a book, back in the 1980s, and writes articles on terrorism. He is a sort of Islamic conservative of the Fuard Ajami school.

Another article by Taheri from the Arab News:

TERRORISM: DOES ISLAM PROMOTE SUICIDE BOMBING?
Arab News - April 2002
Posted 14 May 2002 on RELIGIOSCOPE