Uncountable attempts have been made to understand the sociology of Osama’s mind. Similarly, a host of books are available in the market that try to explain the genesis of al Qaeda and its delinquent orientations. Only a few works, however, stand out in the march of rational explanation. Peter Bergen’s Holy War Inc and Jason Burke’s Al Qaeda are the most promising works among them. Add to the list the 9/11 Commission Report and you have a good idea where does informed Western opinion stand today. But in a world so pregnant with secrets and mysteries, books do not tell everything.
Has it not occurred to you that when President George W Bush was really struggling in the opinion polls against John Kerry, Osama through his televised address rescued him just like Father Christmas? Yeah, right, the picture quality of the address resembled more the PIXAR’s computer animations rather than the footage of a man’s live speech, but that is a matter solely for the American people to decide whether their government was bluffing them or not.
Similarly let us talk of the Project for the New American Century, a so-called non-profit think tank comprising Reaganiites, established in 1997 to oppose the isolationist tendencies of the Clinton administration, and to pressure the government to seek an increased budget for defense purposes in order to transform the US military stature in more aggressive terms. The Statement of Principles of this think-tank contains signatures of the distinguished list of America’s who’s who, including Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Zalmay Khalilzad, Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The Project produced a very interesting report in September 2000 titled, “America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century”.
A black comment (if seen without overblown biases) regarding the military capacity building reads like this: “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.” Does it imply that this project was emphasizing the need for a new Pearl Harbor or may we say 9/11? No wonder then that 9/11 could take place only during the reign of a majority of signatories of its charter. Later the one eager to rebut this hypothesis inquired, whether the mere mention of the term new Pearl Harbor was proof good enough to work as an indictment? Folks, if you are expecting graphic and first hand proof of such would-be conspiracies then you are of course joking. If someone goes to the extent to plotting just a huge conspiracy he most certainly will not to leave any proof behind. What we can then do is to connect the available dots.
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Now whenever Jason Burke or Peter Bergen try to qualify the CIA’s helplessness in mentoring of Osama and his cabal, they use Brigadier (r) Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin’s book titled The Bear Trap (Afghanistan’s Untold Story). I am sure that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) must only be lamenting the severe damage this silly little book has caused. The book produces a detailed account of the Afghan war, and at times you can see the author’s overblown attempts at taking credit. In his desperate attempts at doing so, and perhaps under the influence of the Western co-author, the poor chap inhales his own propaganda that whatever clout the CIA had over the Afghan war was through Pakistan’s ISI. Now whosoever has studied the CIA’s last 60 years of operations, will know that it is not an agency too innocent to sever all its contacts with the Afghan struggle just upon a Pakistani demand. In this situation, the best insurance policy — apart from the continuation of the CIA’s station in Kabul headed by Graham Fuller until 1978 — was introduction of an element into the war that was not only more manageable by the CIA, but also more capable of gaining local trust. The Arabs could hence easily be used in this war, to both countercheck Pakistan’s sincerity in the war, and thwart its influence in the field.
In such a situation, the young member of a family so close to ex-CIA chief George HW Bush, that its head even met him on the very day of 9/11, went to Afghanistan to take part in Jihad. It is true that during the early days of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, George Bush senior, who had detached himself from the CIA only in 1977, still had considerable clout with the agency and the bin Laden family simultaneously. In those days, he was pursuing his business interests that also involved the Saudi Binladin Group. By the time the September 11 attacks were carried out, these interests and cooperation had culminated into such a relationship that Osama’s brother Shafig bin Laden and GHW Bush met on the very day of the attacks in a board meeting of the Carlyle Group.
Osama, meanwhile, was so well-known to the ISI during the Afghan war that Brig. Yousaf’s book did not mention his name even once. Even if it wanted it badly, ISI could not stonewall the CIA’s access to the Afghan war. Instead, it was perfectly possible for the CIA to stonewall ISI on the alternative arrangement. Myths like these were invented to give the ISI a fake sense of ownership. Similarly, another excuse tabled to make sense of the CIA’s lack of involvement in the war is that the US didn’t want to be caught so deeply involved in the struggle. But this flimsy argument is nothing but a smokescreen. The CIA is not an agency based totally on the Anglo-Saxon US citizens alone. If it wanted to, it could never be caught involved in the war. And in those days the US involvement was an open secret.
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The most significant clue comes from Bernard Henri Levy’s book that was quoted at the beginning. In this French book, the author makes no bones about the fact that he received substantial information on Daniel Pearl’s assassination from RAW. In fact, Sudindrah Datta, the then deputy to the RAW chief, is quoted during his meeting with him at RAW headquarters saying, “We know you are an old friend of our country. But first tell me. It seems you have just been in Pakistan…How are those lunatics?” Levy’s book is a classic study in Pakistan bashing. And why should he not be, he is perhaps the only Western journalist who took active part in the war against Pakistan for the creation of Bangladesh. What is amazing about it is that it contains graphic details of Pearl’s execution, albeit as a figment of imagination. The excuse of consulting RAW is said to be the fact that Omar Sheikh, the said assassin of Pearl, spent some time caught in India. When you read the details of Omar Sheikh’s arrest in India, you get the sense of a premeditated surrender. Somehow, it seems that he was there with a view to be apprehended. A willing scapegoat for something bigger. May we say legend building for the sake of enhanced credibility in the Muslim movements and Pakistan?
In India what happened to Omar Sheikh is a story that only comes from Indian sources. But we know one thing. Omar, before coming to Pakistan, had also gone to the Balkans to fight for the Bosnians when actually the CIA itself was raising Muslim fighters to fight against Milosevic’s armies, the last vestiges of the communist order in Europe. The CIA’s operatives, coupled with the Muslim clergy, used to visit Western educational institutions and induct as many Muslim students as they could find willing to join. The next thing we find is Omar heading to Pakistan, where he would successfully fabricate claims of association with the Pakistani secret agencies. We have discussed the presence of some loose cannons inside the Pakistani secret agencies. There is a good chance that some association with such elements might have taken place. The next thing we know is he is caught in India. And then the December 1999 Indian plane hijack takes place. The plane is taken to Kandahar where, let us suppose, Osama compels the Taliban to tolerate its presence. India — quite unlike its past legacy — negotiates with the terrorists and frees some alleged terrorists, which include Omar Sheikh. And is it not baffling that the very man again to be tracked down as the assassin of Danny is none other than Omar, the very man with the Indian pointer on his head?
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If the US and the Indian intelligence agencies are involved in handling the terror networks and then exploiting their work to gain maximum political profit, why do religious folks fall for it? Why cannot they see whose interests they are serving? Are they equal partners in the game, or are they bloodthirsty demons so committed to quench their thirst that they consciously ignore the difference. I think jumping to the conclusion that they are driven by ulterior motives or their beastly urge to kill is a notion only too simplistic. Things do not happen in that simple a way in the real world.
In order to understand the complex phenomenon of collusion between the intelligence agencies and the terrorist non-state actors, we have to understand what currency is used to cajole and coax people into doing their bidding. The most credible currency in this context is credibility itself. There is no gainsaying that these are difficult times. In such circumstances, it is perfectly natural for people in general and the Muslims in particular to feel dizzy and uncomfortable. As this pain and frustration does not find any channel for catharsis, people turn to more desperate options available. In this situation when you do not rule out violence as an option, you essentially turn to the established names in the field. Once you have reached any such person and committed some small acts under his/her influence, you stop questioning the rationale and means. The only ones the manipulators need to puppeteer are the ones at the top.
Osama’s profile building was certainly done meticulously. Since 1996, the US administration is pumping air into this balloon. Osama’s name has been publicized so voraciously in the last 10 years that activists working for their respective freedom struggles, or others simply disillusioned by their lives, find it pretty tempting to work for him. Again considerable care has been taken in projecting Osama’s image. In all photo-ops he is shown as a humble person with no trace of malice. Such publicity essentially has its bearing on the minds of those looking at him with hope.
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Ironically, in one of the formative mythical documents titled Postmodern Terrorism: New Rules for an Old Game published in 1996, Laqueur pointed out: “But with the new technologies and the changed nature of the world in which they operate, a handful of angry Samsons and disciples of apocalypse would suffice to cause havoc. Chances are that of 100 attempts at terrorist superviolence, 99 would fail. According to Nostradamus, “a great ‘king of terror’ will come from heaven in July 1999.” Nostradamus clicked with the mass media and the US authorities.
Laqueur’s co-author and fellow Jew Krauthammer is a renowned neo-con today. As Laqueur went places, he stayed a professor at Georgetown University from 1976 to 1988. After the demise of the Cold War, the architects of the struggle like Samuel Huntington were faced with the challenge of reinventing the threat when people like Francis Fukuyama were claiming that the West had won the war of ideas and therefore the end of history was at hand. The US establishment and the military-industrial complex were worried that people like Al Gore were now keen to bring technologies like the internet out of the military labs and globalize them. Huntington exploited Toynbee’s definition of civilizations and proclaimed that a clash between Islam and the West was imminent. The US establishment chose the incubus of terrorism to articulate its anxieties.
The CIA is a gift of US President Harry Truman, who almost miraculously moulded Roosevelt’s Four Policemen friendship overtures towards Moscow into general antipathy towards the Russians. Truman’s gift, like his use of nuclear weapons on Japan, was targeted at the USSR. Now the CIA knew fully well that with the fall of the USSR, the rules of engagement will change. It wanted an ideology but there was no image available more haunting than the return of Saladin on horseback.
Likewise, with the rise of the Taliban as our desperate attempt at introducing our favored order in Afghanistan, the Indian establishment was flustered. India wanted to exert itself as a global power. Ashok Singal, the head of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), had long been saying that India should forget that there was any other power in the world except the US and Israel. BJP’s success then introduced another dire phenomenon. It opened the doors of administrative control to the Hindu hardliners. India, that had considerable clout in the Arab world, wanted Pakistan as the price for its cooperation with the US neo-cons. The neo-cons were happy to pay this price but only if the ground realities in Pakistan permitted. The leader of the Arab militants, Osama bin Laden hence has been challenging the existence of Pakistan from the very start.
There are some other parallels too between the rise of Osama bin Laden, his notoriously popular fatwa and the CIA’s desperation. George Tenet was confirmed as the Director of Central Intelligence after Bill Clinton could not get his own nominee approved from Congress. Tenet was also recommended by George Bush Senior to his son when he became president. Osama bin Laden was the precious son of the Bush family friends, the Bin Ladens. The family stakes could have forced them readily to send their son to Afghanistan upon the insistence of the Bushes and their intelligence cohorts. Ayman Al Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor, was in prison on the charges of conspiring to assassinate Anwar Sadat during the early days of the Afghan war.
Nowhere in the West would you find a definitive remark on his release even though a few imagine that he was released as no case was proven against him. It is claimed by Muntasir Al-Zayyat, his lawyer, that he broke down under torture and revealed the name of an assassin. Then after being released he ended up serving the US interests in Afghanistan. Is it not possible, that in order to keep a double check on Pakistan’s service in the US proxy war in Afghanistan, the CIA was recruiting people from the Arab world and the Egyptian government itself gifted them Zawahiri if he was not already in their service?
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