The Education of Osama Bin Laden

Below is a reprinted article from the Southern Times, a Southern African online publication: in all essentials, it correctly details the rise and education in terror tactics of Osama bin Laden. It shows that America's desire to destabilise the illegal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan led to its backing of forces that later, and now, constitute a major problem for the region (and for the Obama administration). CIA operations, training, and funding of Osama bin Laden led directly to the rise of the Taliban and of his al qaeda organisation. It also led to funding for the Pakistan military's Interservices Intelligence agency (ISI), which is still, to this day, backing the Taliban.

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On July 3, 1979 US President Jimmy Carter, under advice from National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, signed the first directive allowing secret aid to be given to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime that had recently come to power in Afghanistan.

It marked the beginning of a now infamous convergence of interests, which saw the CIA, the Saudi Arabian regime and the Pakistani Intelligence Directorate (ISI) train and equip the Islamist mujahideen resistance to the Soviet Union.

The US saw an immense opportunity.

In the preceding five years, they had been forced out of both Vietnam and Iran. It had been 'the most humiliating half decade in American history'.

Now they sought to lure the Soviets into an intractable guerrilla war in Central Asia.

Over more than a decade up to 35 000 fighters from the Muslim world were recruited, US$10 billion worth of aid was channelled (including, by 1987, 65 000 tons of arms), and a 'ceaseless stream' of CIA and Pentagon officials helped to plan mujahideen operations.

According to Stephen Coll, writing in the Washington Post: 'At any one time during the Afghan fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA accompanied mujahideen across the border to supervise attacks…

'CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the mujahideen in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and heavy weapons.'

Not only this.

They gave support to the most retrograde elements like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. His followers, according to journalist Tim Weiner, 'first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil'.

The reasoning of the CIA was simple: the more fanatical the fighters and the more brutal their methods, the better they would fight. And the better they fought the more support they should receive.

Ronald Reagan – the same man who denounced the African National Congress and the Palestine Liberation Organization for not renouncing violence – described the mujahideen as 'freedom fighters'.

As president, Reagan met in Washington with rebel leaders like Abdul Haq, who openly admitted his responsibility for terrorist attacks such as a 1984 bomb blast at Kabul's airport that killed at least 28 people.

Meanwhile, with CIA assistance, the mujahideen greatly expanded opium production in areas under their control – turning Afghanistan into what one US official later described as the new Colombia of the drug world.

One of the first non-Afghan volunteers to join the ranks of the mujahideen was Osama bin Laden, hailing from a wealthy construction family in Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden recruited 4 000 volunteers from his own country and developed close relations with the most radical mujahideen leaders.

He also worked closely with the CIA, raising money from private Saudi citizens. By 1984, he was running the Maktab al-Khidamar, an organization set up by the ISI to funnel 'money, arms, and fighters from the outside world in the Afghan war'.

According to journalist John Cooley, 'The CIA gave Osama free rein in Afghanistan, as did Pakistan's intelligence generals. They looked with a benign eye on the build up of Sunni sectarian power in South Asia to counter the influence of Iranian Shi'ism of the Khomeiny variety.'

By 1989 the Russians were exhausted.

Afghanistan had become to them what Vietnam had become to the US. News of the Soviet defeat saw champagne corks popping all over Washington.

The Cold War was about to become history, the US had triumphed.

But when the USSR finally withdrew, the administration of George Bush Sr. turned its back on Afghanistan – leaving it, in the words of The Economist, 'awash with weapons, warlords and extreme religious zealotry.' – The Socialist Alternative


As the state funding from the Saudis and the US dried up, private financiers – like bin Laden himself – further stepped up their contributions to 'the cause'.

The Soviets may have gone, but there were new targets, and they weren't limited to within Afghanistan's borders.

Looking back on his role in the conflict Zbigniew Brzezinski asked (in 1998), 'What is most important to the history of the world…some stirred up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?'

In light of the 'war on terror' Brzezinski's question is tragic.

The hypocrisy is there for all to see: the 'terrorists' of today were trained, funded and backed by modern imperialism yesterday.

Bin Laden gave Bush just the excuse the US needed to go into Afghanistan again, and to follow it up with the obliteration of Iraq. That war shows that while bin Laden may have been a useful protégé, the US is still the master when it comes to terror.

Osama bin Laden is Killed but no end in sight to the war on terror

Below is a post from Richard Jackson's new blog, offering his interesting and salutory reflections on the killing of Osama bin Laden and the likely consequences. His blog is at http://richardjacksonterrorismblog.wordpress.com/

The Death of Osama bin Laden: It’s a pity…

May 2, 2011 by richardjacksonterrorismblog

The fact that Osama bin Laden, a man who fought his enemies with violence that frequently killed the innocent, is now dead could be a positive development…

But it’s a pity that the US chose to pursue a massive ‘war on terrorism’ as a response to bin Laden’s terrorist campaign, a war that has killed and injured far more innocent people than bin Laden’s initial attacks…

And it’s a pity that the Bush administration and the coalition of the willing linked Iraq to al Qaeda and bin Laden, and then invaded with the result of more than 600,000 dead…

And it’s a pity that so many people, including many innocents, were kidnapped, rendered and tortured for information on bin Laden’s whereabouts, and in the end, normal methods of intelligence-gathering found him anyway…

And it’s a pity that the US did not respond to the Taliban’s offer to hand over bin Laden to trial in Pakistan in 2001, and that they did not take the opportunity to strengthen international law and the ICC, so that bin Laden (and any other terrorist or war criminal) could be captured, tried and imprisoned at the Hague. A strong international legal system guaranteed by the US would have been far better than the disastrous decade of war on terrorism than we have had instead…

And it’s a pity that so many are celebrating using violent means to fight a violent group, and that it will most likely lead to a continuing, maybe even intensifying, cycle of violence. It’s a pity that so few recognize that violence rarely leads to any long-term solutions, but instead, most often creates ever more violence and suffering in the long run…

And it’s a pity that some think we should just celebrate his death without thinking about the context in which it occurred, the history of suffering he and his enemies engendered, the inherent moral and strategic problems with the way it was done, and the likely future consequences for so many…

And it’s a pity that the US and other Western states view ‘justice’ as killing a man extra-judicially and then disappearing his body in the sea. This seems like a surrender of our own values and principles, and it helps to create a world in which law and justice is ever weaker…

And it’s a pity that targeted killing is now a core tactic of counter-terrorism, especially when the Israeli experience clearly demonstrates that it does not work to reduce terrorism, kills many innocent bystanders, and leads to more recruits for the terrorist groups…

And it’s a pity that bin Laden came to be seen as the personalization of evil, the mastermind who could be blamed for causing most of the world’s terrorism, and who therefore needed to be eradicated at all costs. Solely focusing on one man meant that the history and context of real political grievances which lead to bin Laden’s rise was silenced and erased; terrorism was about one evil guy, not decades of US foreign policy, entrenched grievances, structures of oppression and daily physical, structural and cultural violence. Now he’s gone, I wonder who will take his place as the next personification of evil…

And it’s a pity that it happened so late that it will have no positive effect at all on terrorism or counter-terrorism, or on bin Laden’s mythical status as the man who stood up to the Western world for more than a decade…

And it’s a pity that they dumped his body in the sea, which will most likely add to his mythical status. It won’t surprise me if a lot of his supporters refuse to believe he is really dead. They may also be further angered that his corpse was thrown into the sea rather than being given a normal burial…

And it’s a pity that killing him in this way now makes him even more of a martyr to his followers, and a potent symbol of resistance. It would have been better to de-mythologise him and exorcise his power by putting him on trial and showing him in prison – an ordinary man growing old, rather than some kind of super-terrorist who eluded the world’s greatest superpower for years…

And it’s a pity that all the resources and efforts put into killing bin Laden over ten years was not instead put into strengthening international law, dealing with political grievances, supporting peace constituencies, resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, genuinely promoting political participation and democracy, and reconsidering oppressive and unjust foreign policies which provoke violent resistance…

And it’s a pity that so many Americans are on the streets celebrating and so many political leaders are crowing about it as a major victory. It will be a further humiliation for some in the Middle East, and they may rightly feel that the celebrations contain no acknowledgement of the suffering they have experienced from US invasion, counter-terrorism operations, drone attacks, rendition, etc. I wonder how we would react to celebrations in Iraq at the news of Bush’s death…

And it’s a pity that no one is talking about the other three people killed in the operation, one of whom was bin Laden’s son and the woman who was purportedly his wife. They may be more ‘collateral damage’ in our war on terror. It illustrates something about our real values that their lives are so unimportant that they won’t be discussed or mourned in all the euphoria over killing bin Laden, the evil mastermind. And it’s a pity that Obama said ‘no Americans were harmed’ in the operation, as if American lives are more valuable than others. This way of ordering the world into worthy and unworthy victims, people to be mourned and people to be erased, is what keeps the cycle of violence ever turning…

And it’s a pity that it will not lead to the end of the war on terror, the culture of fear, and all the intrusions into daily life of militarized forms of counter-terrorism. It’s a pity that in response to bin Laden’s initial attacks, we irrevocably changed our way of life and undermined our own values, and that political leaders are already saying that his death changes none of these things but that we will have to (endlessly) continue to be vigilant in the fight against terrorism…

It’s a pity that this event will do nothing to end the sheer stupidity and shameful waste of ten years of war and violence.