For some light summer reading, I like nothing more than to kick back and find out how the U.S. government has gotten the militant Islamists completely wrong and how the war against them has the potential to turn as savagely bloody as anything the first two world wars could dish up.
What else could I be talking about except Imperial Hubris, by Anonymous?
This tome is by a CIA officer who is still with the agency and who worked directly on the Osama bin Laden file from 1996 to 1999.
I've just started it, but some early claims are:
1. Osama bin Laden is the real deal among Arab Muslims. He is not an extremist. He is in the mainstream.
2. The Arab Islamists hate the U.S. for what it does, not what it stands for.
3. Westerners don't fundamentally understand Muslims.
On point 1: In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, an Arab co-worker of the time described bin Laden and his ilk as follows: "These are our Nazis."
However, he is moderate, educated and living in the West -- and at the time, was making a good living.
It's generally accepted that much of the Arab world is uneducated and living in poverty, often under the heel of authoritarian regimes.
"'Osama bin Laden is considered a true Muslim. They don't have any doubt about that,'she says in a husky, French-accented voice." The woman talking in that quote is Carmen bin Ladin, former wife of Yesam bin Ladin, in a July 22 Globe and Mail article. Bin Ladin has written a book called Inside the Kingdom, about her life in Saudi Arabia, one that touches on her notorious former brother-in-law.
"When Osama dies, I fear there will be a thousand men to take his place," she wrote. "The ground of Saudi Arabia is fertile soil for intolerance and arrogance, and for contempt toward outsiders. It is a country where there is no room for mildness, mercy, compassion or doubt. . . . Their way has been chosen by God.
"They are eager to understand our technology, and they understand our political systems. But inside them, there is nothing but scorn for what they perceive as the godless, individualistic values and shameless freedoms of the Western way of life."
Which brings me to ...
Point 2: Anonymous (who isn't, really) argues that bin Laden has identified the U.S. as a threat to the Muslim faith, its followers and its lands and is engaging in what he sees as a defensive jihad.
Some provocations for bin Laden and his followers: Israel, supporting India's Hindus against Pakistan's Muslim's over Kashmir, supporting apostate governments in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia etc. etc. and attempting to control oil production in the Arabian peninsula.
Now, the Arab philosopher considered to be the intellectual godfather for Islamists is a fellow named Sayyid Qutb, executed in 1966.
The NY Times had author Paul Berman (Terror and Liberalism) write an essay on him in the March 23, 2003 issue of its magazine. Here's an excerpt:
"The truly dangerous element in American life, in his estimation, was not capitalism or foreign policy or racism or the unfortunate cult of women's independence. The truly dangerous element lay in America's separation of church and state -- the modern political legacy of Christianity's ancient division between the sacred and the secular. This was not a political criticism. This was theological -- though Qutb, or perhaps his translators, preferred the word 'ideological.' "
I think the Islamists of the Qutb/bin Laden school hate the west for what it is as well as what it does.
What I hope the book will tell me as I work through it is what happens if all the provocations that A. lays out disappear. Does al Qaeda shrivel up and die for lack of outrage?
Here's a partial answer from A.:
"Part of bin Laden's genius is that he recognized early on the difference between issues Muslims find offensive about America and the West, and those they find intolerable and life-threatening. ..."
Point 3: I found the stuff about the loving, one-on-one relationship Muslims have with God to be interesting, along with the duty the faith imposes on Muslims to stick up for each other.
That's it for now. Must sleep. Fourteen pages down, 249 to go. Will report back.