Bin Laden: The Great Escape?

[Sir Kenyth]

Unfortunately, people like Usama never die for their cause. They just tell other people to die for their cause. 10 to 1 he'd sell his own mother, wives, and children into sexual slavery for a ticket to freedom if he was caught. And have a story justifying the whole thing before he landed.

[fable]

quote:

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Originally posted by Lavindathar:
If you do something that your religion believes in, is it wrong? (they belive in Jihad - one day, there will be a holy war, and all none belivers will perish) that is all I am asking. Is he trying to emulate Jihad, and start it?

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I see bin Ladan as a fallen paladin, in a sense: a man of great moral character who put all his family's extensive resources (and he was a multi-millionaire) behind a campaign to assist those of his religion whenever they were under threat by others. I've seen interviews with friends of his who claim he flew weapons and logistical support personally to the Islamic resistance fighters in Kosovo when it was under attack by Milosevic. His medieval Christian equivalent would have been the best of the holy knights of the Crusade, out to rescue the Cross from the purest of motives. (And yes, I know the Crusades were far from pure, and wrecked horrors upon the MidEast that still have repercussions today--but the simile still stands.)

As I see it, with what little I admittedly understand of this man, somewhere along the line the sheer weight of crimes he saw perpetrated against followers of Islam by Western Christian civilization simply became too vast for him to handle. And instead of furnishing support and focusing on the positive message of the religion, he began to strike out at what he saw a single, simple monolith of evil. At that point, the paladin fell. He lost Islam, his center, his balance. He became a force of retribution, and people who feel like this no longer see what's in front of them. The lives lost in the 9/11 bombing were only a symbol, to him. He's become a sounding board for negative emotions, and lost everything else.

A man of charisma like this can draw many followers after him. It's a real shame--though none of this should blunt the efforts to find and eliminate both bin Ladan and al-Qua'ida, before they strike again.

[Azred]

Fable, I am compelled to respectfully disagree. Osama bin Laden does not have a past history of "great moral character" because if he did his money would have gone to charity--one of the Five Pillars of Islam--instead of funding terrorist activities. Besides, Osama has about as much to do with true Islamic theological belief as I do (which is none). He is just a rich Saudi gone bad and is actually doing more to harm Islam and the Arab world than anyone else in history, with the possible exception of the Madhi.
Unfortunately, we will never ever capture him alive, just like with Hitler. The scenario I envision is this: he secretly commits suicide, his body is found by American forces after an attack, and then his followers can claim that he is a martyr--instant near-deification.

I don't like it, but I call it like I see it.

[ 03-11-2002: Message edited by: Azred ]

[fable]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Azred:
[QB]Fable, I am compelled to respectfully disagree. Osama bin Laden does not have a past history of "great moral character" because if he did his money would have gone to charity--one of the Five Pillars of Islam--instead of funding terrorist activities. Besides, Osama has about as much to do with true Islamic theological belief as I do (which is none). He is just a rich Saudi gone bad and is actually doing more to harm Islam and the Arab world than anyone else in history, with the possible exception of the Madhi.
Unfortunately, we will never ever capture him alive, just like with Hitler. The scenario I envision is this: he secretly commits suicide, his body is found by American forces after an attack, and then his followers can claim that he is a martyr--instant near-deification.

I don't like it, but I call it like I see it.

Azred, I sincerely hope you're wrong, because I also predicted (on another forum) that the worst possible scenario would be for bin Ladan to end up as a shining martyr for every poverty-stricken, untutored, angry young kid in Islam. If the future is the one we see, it's a dark future.

As to funding terrorist activities--as a Saudi diplomat recently put it, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." And while there's no justification in my mind for the likes of the al-Qua'ida (they are terrorists, and that's all), quite a number of other groups are not so easily classified, in history or today. The Kosovo Liberation Front is an example of the latter, I think. My impression (and it's just that: an impression created by several interviews of those who know or knew him, and no more) is that bin Ladan spent his time years ago focusing on Islamic cultures that were directly under attack, and the KLF was among these. In a sense, and depending upon whom you spoke with, this could be conceived of as charity: supporting the community of fellow worshippers who were under genocidal attack by Milosevic.

However, this is only my POV, and yours is just as justifiable. [img]smile.gif[/img]