Osama bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia, but not of Saudi stock. His father was from Yemen, a desperately poor neighbouring country, looked down on by the Saudi’s, and his mother is thought to have been of Libyan extraction. This meant that his family was not socially acceptable to the Saudi aristocracy, but nevertheless the elder bin Laden made a fortune as a building contractor, getting important government contracts because of a close personal friendship he had struck up with the founder of Saudi Arabia, Abdel Aziz al Saud.
Osama was one of 52 children; his father had ten wives and died - probably of exhaustion - when the lad was just 13, leaving him an $80 million inheritance. It seems that with prudent investments Osama increased this fortune to $250 million and then went terrorising in Afghanistan at the behest of the American Central Intelligence Agency who were backing the Mujahedin against the Russians. Two points to ponder here. The CIA probably have little intelligence and the Mujahedin regarded themselves as freedom fighters not terrorists. But then what’s in a name?
Quite a lot actually; the Mujahedin later morphed into the Taliban
Young bin Laden saw the fight to the end; the Mujahedin won against all odds. The odds were improved in their favour a little though by the billions of dollars the CIA covertly provided. After the conflict Osama moved back home to Saudi Arabia where he offered the ruling Royals his expertise and his band of highly trained freedom fighters to ward off the Iraqi’s who had invaded Kuwait. He was furious when his offer was spurned by the Saudis who instead invited the Americans on to their soil to initiate the gulf war.
Osama noted that the American soldiers smoked pot, had pictures of naked women in their barracks and played rock’n’roll music. Even more degrading to his Muslim sensitivities was the fact that they brought women soldiers with them, mainly as drivers, and they wore battle fatigues with shirts undone enough to reveal cleavages. He began to understand why the Mullahs in Iran had declared America to be “the great Satan.”
When bin Laden began to publicly denounce the Saudi regime for their lack of Islamic purism they banished him to Jidda. He fled there and went to live in the Sudan where he used his wealth to build roads and set up military training camps for young rebel Muslims. After outstaying his welcome he moved these camps to Afghanistan.
In 1993 eighteen American soldiers, who were part of a humanitarian mission to famine-struck Somalia, were killed by street fighters in Mogadishu. It was suspected that some of bin Laden-trained Afghani’s were involved and the end result saw America withdraw from the area. This reaction, it is said, was the turning point in bin Laden’s career. Noting that the Russians could be humiliated in Afghanistan and that the “soft” American were driven out of Somalia simply by an assault by a ragtag bunch of street fighters, he concluded that that superpowers were vulnerable and that a holy war, Moslems against Christians could see a victory to the side that on paper anyway, seemed least likely to win.
It was hoped that his assassination in Pakistan at the hands of America’s superbly trained Navy Seals would see the end of his reign of terror, but his legacy lives on in the hearts and minds of the tens of thousands of dissidents that have been indoctrinated through his training camps over the years and who will continue to do battle in his memory.
The Obama administration were cock-a-hoop over his death and were reluctant to admit that his successors killed their ambassador and three of his aides in Benghazi in September last year and even went so far as to blame a you-tube video maker for the assault on the embassy refusing to admit that it was a well-planned terrorist attack which they ought to have foreseen and repelled.
Incredibly, they are now on the verge of stepping in to offer aid to the rebels who are attempting to topple Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, despite these people in the main being of Al Qaeda descent.
For many strategically-placed Americans, war is an aphrodisiac. Huge shifts of resources with total disregard for efficiency and all paid for by government-funded cheap debt does wonders for their vital military-industrial complex. We’ve recently been told of the billions of dollars that the CIA delivered in suitcases to Hamid Karzai’s corrupt regime in Afghanistan.
Obama came into power looking for all the world like a peacemaker. He was going to talk the Iranians out of becoming a nuclear power and close Guantanamo. Instead his drones continue to roam the skies over Pakistan indiscriminately killing insurgency leaders and often innocent bystanders in the process and therefore undoubtedly creating a succession of suicide bombers for future missions.
These are not holy wars. Holy men on both sides of the religious divide would quickly point out that waging war and killing innocent people is not part of either doctrine.
Christianity is pretty clear on this. Forgive those who trespass against you, it declares. If someone strikes you, turn the other cheek, is a further instruction. And the founder Himself said: “Love your enemies.” I gather Islam and the Koran express almost identical sentiments.
A genuine holy war would be a worldwide war against poverty and injustice, against bigotry and mistrust. It would have the potential to stop terrorism in its tracks and could change the world forever.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for the people who make the decisions, east or west, to grasp the mantle.
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