Posted on 12/26/2004 6:47:14 AM PST by SJackson
Why did Osama bin Laden release a video four days before the recent American election and coincidentally just as Yasir Arafat had already effectively departed the world stage? For the first time Osama took full responsibility for the 9/11 attacks against America (neither the Zionist Mossad nor the CIA did it); characterized al-Qaeda as seeking “freedom for the Muslim nation”; explained that Islamic jihad does not oppose infidels but opposes specific American policies.
He said: "Our patience ran out (after) we saw the injustice and inflexibility of the American-Israel alliance toward our people in Palestine and Lebanon."
Finally, Osama threatened more terrorism if America did not change its foreign policies.
Of course, he was not telling the truth. For example, Syria and the Iran-backed Hizbullah have totally occupied and destroyed Lebanon. Neither America nor Israel has done this. In addition, after Jordan massacred and exiled Arafat`s terrorists, they went to Lebanon where they proceeded to murder and persecute Lebanese Christians, ruin all civil life, even for their own people, and rain death down upon northern Israel. That is why Israel finally invaded Lebanon. (Please visit www.phyllis-chesler.com to see a 45-minute video of a Maronite Christian woman who suffered the Palestinian occupation of southern Lebanon and was rescued by Israeli soldiers and physicians and thus lived to tell the tale).
Osama also referred to "the destroyed towers in Lebanon." None were destroyed by America or Israel. However, on April 18, 1983, a suicide car bomber (probably backed by Iran`s Hizbullah), blew up the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing sixty-three people, including seventeen Americans; and on October 23, 1983, Hizbullah again blew up both the U.S. Marine barracks and the French military headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 American marines and 58 French paratroopers.
Islamic and western analysts have also drawn these conclusions. But what crucial clues have they failed to notice about Osama`s tape?
Osama taunted President Bush, tried to shame him — a typical Arab Islamic technique of punishment, manipulation, and control (Islam is a shame and honor society). Perhaps Osama believed that this would persuade Americans to vote for Senator Kerry and not for the "shamed" President. Osama said: "We never thought the high commander of the U.S. would leave 50,000 of his citizens in both towers to face the horrors by themselves when they most needed him because he thought listening to a child [this was poorly translated from the Arabic as it had to have specified female child] discussing her goat and its ramming was more important than paying attention to planes and their ramming of the skyscrapers which gave us three times the time to execute the operation, thanks be to God."
Again, he was not telling the truth. Nothing could have stopped the planes. But now, he gives himself away, both culturally and autobiographically. Osama is scornful, contemptuous — heartbroken? — because President Bush dared to patiently listen to a "little girl" for many minutes when he should have been paying attention to what he, Osama, had just done: Crash two planes into the Twin Towers and another plane into the Pentagon.
Incredibly, Osama seems to be competing with a little girl for President Bush`s attention. Where Osama comes from, girls (and women) simply do not count. Only grown men and boys do. It is an insult that President Bush does not immediately pay attention to Osama. Worse: Perhaps President Bush`s quiet and visible commitment to literacy for girls as well as boys actually enrages Osama. Why do girls need an education anyway?
Or is Osama somehow undone by President Bush`s ability to contain his emotions in order not to frighten the classroom children? In Osama`s world, grown men are allowed to become emotionally "hysterical"; the fact that this may frighten, even traumatize children, does not matter. (Think of the Islamic Arab street and the hysterical quality of the funerals of homicidal suicide bombers, replete with fully armed, masked men and ullulating, veiled women.) Arab Muslim adults do not have to contain their emotions and remain calm; they can act out both privately and publicly, and in front of the children.
In demanding that President Bush pay attention to Osama, is Osama somehow confusing Mr. Bush with his own Yemeni father, Mohammed, who had ten wives and 54 children? Osama was the seventeenth of twenty four sons — how much positive paternal attention could he have received? (Also, his father died when he was only ten years old).
More important, Osama`s mother, Hamida, was a Syrian whose father gave her to Mohammed bin Laden as part of a business deal. Hamida was known as "Al Abeda" (the slave.) But she was also known for being outspoken and western. (She liked designer pants suits by Chanel). Poor Hamida was also the fourth wife — an unlucky position since Mohammed bin Laden engaged in the convenient practice of divorcing his fourth wife so he could remarry. (Muslims can only have four legal wives). In addition, Mohammed bin Laden punished Hamida by permanently exiling her to another city. He did so when Osama was not yet two years old.
Osama was brought up by a stepmother, Mohammed`s first wife, Al-Khalifa. Thus Osama not only lost his mother at a very young age, he had to live with her devalued status as a woman, a "slave," a divorced wife, and an admirer of western couture. Osama had to overcome not only the "shame" that all Arab Muslim men unconsciously suffer, namely, being of (devalued) woman born; he also had to overcome the shame of being abandoned by a divorced, "slave" and pro-Western mother.
Are we saying that Osama`s tape can be reduced entirely to autobiographical ravings? Of course we’re not. But we cannot afford to neglect this dimension. Focusing precisely on such childhood and cultural variables will be crucial in any attempt to bring democracy and freedom to this barbarous region. The overall status of women, as well as specific practices such as polygamy, female illiteracy, veiling, stonings to death, and Arab honor killings all shape Arab Muslim psychology and national character. It is important that Americans and Israelis understand such Arab and Muslim cultural values in order to understand how these values have affected someone like Osama bin Laden —and there are more like him where he came from.
Let us briefly return to Osama`s tape. He is very bitter about both Presidents Bush. He compares them to the corrupt monarchies and theocracies in the Middle East. He says that the elder Bush “transferred the oppression of freedom and tyranny to his son and they call it the Patriot Law to fight terrorism. [The elder Bush] was bright in putting his sons as governors in states and he didn`t forget to transfer his experience from rulers of our religion to Florida to falsify elections to benefit from it in critical times.”
Here again, he is confusing President Bush with the Saudi rulers — and with his own father and older half-brothers — who have disinherited him, if not financially, then psychologically. Osama (as do many western intellectuals) views President Bush as an ally of the House of Saud. To the extent to which this is true, Osama is at war with the House of Saud not only because they’ve disinherited him but because he finds them far too modern. Osama is also at war with America and Israel because of their stated, if not fully actualized, values of modernity, democracy, human rights, and women`s rights.
Finally, Osama is also still psychologically at war with his father Mohammed — a builder and who renovated the famous mosques in Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. While Muslims have destroyed and torched mosques, Osama has not directly done so. He can, however, destroy buildings that dare to "tower" over mosques. This is forbidden. No infidel or "dhimmi" building can be higher than a Muslim building.
What proof do we have for this interesting but arguably dramatic statement? Osama`s code name for his terrorist attacks are as follows: the attack on Kenya was known as "The Holy Ka`aba (which is in Mecca) and the attack on Tanzania was known as the "Al Aqsa" (which is in Jerusalem). We have been told that Osama`s code-names for some of his terrorist operations bore the name of these mosques. This may suggest that Osama is also (unconsciously) trying to destroy what his father has built.
Osama bin Laden is a sadistic, political serial killer. He is taunting President Bush and America with this tape in the same way that serial killers taunt the police with notes, calls, and with the tableaus of the dead that they so carefully stage. Osama`s rage is not merely tactical or strategic. It may also be motivated by his early childhood and family dynamics.
Let us make sure that America defeats Osama and his followers. Let us hope and pray that, despite every obstacle, America can help free Muslims — especially women, intellectuals, dissidents and the poor, who have been held hostage by savagely reactionary rulers for too long.
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D. is the author of twelve books, the most recent of which is “The New Anti-Semitism: the Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It.” She is working on a new book for Palgrave-Macmillan (St. Martins). She may be reached through her website www.phyllis-chesler.com.
Nancy H. Kobrin, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst and Arabist in St. Paul, Minnesota. Along with her co-author Yoram Schweitzer, research associate at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, she has written a book on suicide terrorism, “The Sheikh’s New Clothes,” which includes an introduction by Dr. Chesler and a special chapter by Reuven Paz, Ph.D., director of PRISM — Project for the Research of Islamist Movements (www.prism.org.il).
/sarcasm
Another murderous despot revealed to be a small flawed man, raging at the world out of adolescent narcissism.
True.
How tragic that he has the resources to do the damage he has done. On the other hand, maybe it was what was needed to wake us up to the real dangers of the world.
Am I reading this right? All the Islamic crap that he has wrapped around his terrorist group is basically hiding the fact he has never grown up and is having a temper tantrum because he never got the attention he needed from his father. Oh please.
That is actually a very good assessment....
He was a non descript cousin before he decided to become this murdering mastermind of malice....
Substitute Communism for Islam and Lenin's desire to revenge the execution of his brother by the Tsar, and you have the same old story of the adolescent narcissists desire for the unchecked ability to destroy those that thwart them.
When personal grievence is given its outlet through totalitarian systems, the unthinkable can occur. The history of the 30's is example enough.
Very good analysis. I've often thought that if Adolf Hitler had succeeded in entering the art academy in Vienna, World War II would never have happened. Not that some other severely disaffected whack-job couldn't have attained power in Germany, but the effects wouldn't have been exactly the same.
Finally, Osama threatened more terrorism if America did not change its foreign policies.
Thank you very much for your last message and your advice. We'll be sure to give it all the serious consideration it deserves.
G. Bush
"We never thought the high commander of the U.S. would leave...his citizens in both towers to face the horrors by themselves...because...listening to a child...discussing her goat...was more important than blah blah blah blah!"Neither did we. We don't. And, in fact, he didn't.
However allegience to this phoney propaganda fiction glaringly shows the de facto anti-American conspiracy between the enemies of the United States--both foreign, including Al Qaida et al., and domestic, i.e. the American Left.
"Or is Osama somehow undone by President Bush`s ability to contain his emotions in order not to frighten the classroom children?"Yes, his steely focus and self-control, his overwhelming sense of responsibility and selfless commitment to those and that which he has sworn to protect, and his brilliant leadership dumbfound America's enemies, domestic and foreign, and, to their horror and dismay, defy and belie their propaganda.
The American people gave her enemies, both domestic and foreign, their response to all this on November 2, 2004.
The American Left is still dumbfounded.
So too, no doubt, is Osama bin Laden.
Osama also referred to "the destroyed towers in Lebanon." None were destroyed by America or Israel. However, on April 18, 1983, a suicide car bomber (probably backed by Iran`s Hizbullah), blew up the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing sixty-three people, including seventeen Americans;
According to Robert Baer in "See No Evil" this was done by the late (not so) great Yassir Arafat. The Iranians outsourced it to him.
I think it would be very interesting to see this analysis more widely publicized. It might have a very interesting effect on bin Laden. He might become further enraged, make a fatal mistake, and expose himself. Hmmmmmmm...
"[The elder Bush] was bright in putting his sons as governors in states and...to falsify elections” "Additional, oft-repeated phoney propaganda fiction of America's foreign enemies and the American Left.
A worthless little murderous slug of a tormented child just like the one from the abusive Father dominating Schickelgrubber family of Austria, all those many years ago.
This is an excellent article. I think the author is right on target.
Excellent analysis.
Bump
Why even bother with trying to figure out whats going on in this murderer's head? Just capture it and behead it!
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