Posted on 01/21/2006 5:18:21 PM PST by FairOpinion
The former chief of the CIAs Osama bin Laden unit says bin Ladens truce offer comes from a long-established Muslim tradition of warfare -- sending a clear signal to the United States that an al Qaeda attack is more than likely.
Twenty-two-year CIA veteran Michael Scheuer, who wrote Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror, says bin Laden has offered his final warning before launching his next strike.
Warning your enemy before you attack him is very much a tradition in Islam from the prophet to the times when Saladin was fighting the Crusaders, he would warn them, he would offer them a truce, he would try to go the extra mile before attacking him, Scheuer said on The OReilly Factor Thursday.
So I think it's very important that we understand the context in which bin Laden is speaking, Scheuer continued, because I've heard other people today already saying that he's offering a truce because it's a sign of weakness, because we're beating him. And I think that's pretty far from the truth.
Following Al-Jazeeras disclosure of the tape yesterday, several bin Laden experts -- including journalist Richard Miniter on Human Events Online -- dismissed bin Ladens latest message as nothing more than a bid to reassert himself as the worlds preeminent terrorist.
I asked two experts on the Middle East and Islam their thoughts about Scheuers assertion. They cited historical parallels to Scheuers contention.
Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), told me: Traditional Islamic theology actually does support the idea that Osama was asking for a truce because he perceives weakness in his ranks.
Spencer pointed me to a passage (below) from Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveller), a Shafi'i Sharia manual endorsed by Al-Azhar University in Cairo as conforming to the "practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community." Heres what it says:
Truces are permissible, not obligatory. ... Interests that justify making a truce are such things as Muslim weakness because of lack of numbers or materiel, or the hope of an enemy becoming Muslim. ... If the Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet (may Allah bless him and give him peace) made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud. ... The rulings of such a truce are inferable from those of the non-Muslim poll tax; namely, that when a valid truce has been effected, no harm may be done to non-Muslims until it expires.
A second scholar, Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, told me: Bin Ladin has a history of making threats he did not carry out -- for example, versus Israel after the execution of Ahmed Yassin. It is more useful to see his tape as an attempt to stay relevant than in the tradition of Muslim warfare.
Did I miss something?
osama been hiding! :)
You did get right to the point.
A few nights ago Jon Stewart was saying that "osama been hiding" had said that the U.S. shouldn't be in Afghanistan or Iraq. Jon said - "osama been hiding" is right - We should have all our soldiers looking for osama's sorry @$$!
Semper Fi
Maybe he's been reading the phony poll numbers and he is playing for time until a "brokeback democrat" administration takes over.
>Bin laden did not offer a truce, he said he would accept a truce offered by the USA, which we are not offering.
That's what I originally read too. Seems it must have gotten mistranslated from the original.
I do not understand our reluctance to employ the same tactics Christ will use when He returns.
I think we're lucky that this Scheuer bird is the FORMER head of the Bin Laden crew in the CIA.
I did not see OBL offering a truce before 9-11.
So I conclude, this article is wrong and that OBL's truce offering is from weakness.
I think it's more accurate to say that it is a human tradition for someone to call out for a truce when they're getting their butt kicked.
[I was surprised 9-11 went down with the lunatics here for over a year.]
You are forgetting that Ata and the others were deliberately kept on a tight budget for exactly that reason. The night before the attack, they wanted to buy prostitutes but it cost too much. Imagine these wild looking arabs and diminutive little Ata scoring with the American women without money, job cover or personalities to impress the women.
The hijacker handlers deliberately chose gamma males for the job (nobody with social graces would do). The German spies included alpha males and that was the tactical mistake for the Germans.
Alpha males can seduce women. Gamma males have to pay for it. Little arabs like Ata in strip clubs, pretending their pilots, is pathetic.
So, like Son of Sam, who was a gamma male...Ata could be expected only to hate American society more and more as he realized that American alpha males were taking more and more of what he might have thought was his fair share.
Liberal societies, in this regard, do have a tendency to produce or stengthen serial killers like Ata and Son of Sam. The reason is simple: a "Christian" environment demands that every male get his chance at only one woman. This leaves a "fair share" for the gamma males and the gamma males don't go off the deep end with rage.
Since 9-11, a lot of extraordinarily attractive young Clintonite American women have taken up a strategy of giving "mercy sex" to (or actually desiring) anti-Bush arabs on college campuses. I've already chronicled half a dozen cases I saw personally in 2002-2004. The relationship revolves around the arab man's hatred for Bush which the women find sexy. (Frenchmen have discovered their sexual desirability on American campuses as well).
We may think this is a total outrage (and it is!) but the behavior is a two-edged sword against the enemy.
If Ata or any of his weird-looking co-hijackers had been seduced or even befriended by a whacko Code Pink volunteer or Cindy Sheehan who said she believed in "the insurgents"...he quite possibly may have decided that he quite liked the advantage anti-Bush arabs now have with liberal American women and he would want to stay alive to exploit this.
I guess it is at least a good thing that Americans are no longer letting Arabs in America walk around looking alienated. The idea is to start conversations with them and find out where they are at.
Unfortunately, I believe too many liberals are trying to "befriend" arabs in America who actually do tell them where they are at (pro-terror) and the liberals do not go to FBI.GOV to report them.
Well,that isn't true, Clinton negotiated with the IRA and with Arafat.
Why would a terrorist go after a terrorist? (The enemy within)
Interesting analysis.
Well, Clinton of course, felt their pain. I just wanted to point out that we certainly do negotiate with terrorists, and coddle them and psychoanalyze them and try to understand them. Or should I say "they", as I hope no Conservative or Republican would even consider the prospect-even though we did arm and ally with OBL and Saddam Hussein but somethings are better left unsaid.
I wasn't sure if I'd said something that didn't settle well or what. I wasn't sure what your comment meant.
I'm glad that we can agree to disagree on some points and still talk to each other.
Take care.
D1
Thanks for the clarification. Nice website N. Beaujon.
I'm all for shooting first. But we really have to bother with asking questions later or can we just go home after we're done shooting ? I don't think I really care what the answers are ;-)
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