Anthony Sampson :
© International Herald Tribune All Rights, September
24, 2001
Military Reprisals Play Into bin Laden's Strategy
LONDON What did Osama bin Laden - or whoever was the
master-mind - really hope to achieve by destroying the World
Trade Center? Our sense of outrage must not prevent us realizing
that he must have planned this terrifying act, not as an end in itself,
but as part of a much broader strategy against his enemy.
And we know enough about Mr. bin Laden to know that his first
concern is his own country of Saudi Arabia. It was not Israel
which provoked the ferocity of his fundamentalist crusade: it was
the American military presence in Saudi Arabia in the Gulf War 10
years ago, when Iraq invaded Kuwait and the Saudi King had to
ask the Americans to defend the kingdom.
He saw the Americans as corrupting and defiling the true Islamic
faith of the founder of his country, King Saud, who had been the
hero of the fundamentalists. Mr. bin Laden has been determined
ever since to restore Saudi Arabia to its previous role, as the
guardian of that austere faith and the sacred places of Islam.
It is obvious why he chose the twin towers as the prime target -
for the second time - for they provided the most visible symbol of
American capitalism which he hated; and no spectacle could
achieve more publicity in the world's media than their collapse. But
he must also have known that it would precipitate an angry
response from Americans, and a clamor for reprisals.
Indeed, this was surely his next objective: to provoke a display of
American military might across the world. And so far his plan has
worked well, as the American fleet sails towards the Gulf, while
British warships were long ago scheduled for maneuvers off
Oman. The western fleets will provide just the kind of image which
will inflame the Saudi fundamentalists who felt so humiliated by the
Gulf War. Among all the reports from Pakistan, Afghanistan or the
Middle East, few have emerged from Saudi Arabia. But in that
autocratic country no news can mean bad news. Visitors report a
widening gap between the Saudi elite, well-educated and
English-speaking, and the growing numbers of Saudi unemployed
who feel thoroughly excluded.
And there have been ominous reports of Saudi dissidents
demonstrating against Americans, and of soldiers praising Osama
bin Laden - as opposed to his rich, respectable brothers who have
been close to the Saudi royals.
Nothing could be more worrying to the Saudi royal family than a
new rebellion by militant fundamentalists inside their country. And
if the Saudi fundamentalists were to succeed, nothing could be
more dangerous to western capitalism; for they could cut off huge
oil supplies and deprive industrial countries of their most crucial
lifeline.
It is hardly possible that Osama bin Laden does not have this
eventual prospect in mind. He was brought up in Saudi Arabia
where, as he saw it, the oil billions were undermining the purity of
Islam and corrupting the ruling class including his own family; and
he has since been able to see all the vulnerabilities of the West,
whether through is own expensive education, or through his family
construction business, or through working with the CIA in
Afghanistan.
The ambition to undermine global capitalism will not be confined to
Saudi militant fundamentalists: it will be shared by millions of
destitute people across the developing world who have felt
humiliated and impoverished by the relentless domination of the
West. They will see the thousands of dead victims in Manhattan as
unimportant compared to the millions who have been killed,
maimed or uprooted in countries devastated by wars for which
they blame Americans.
And for many Arabs, Africans and Asians who have been made to
feel that they are hopeless, incompetent and marginal, the
demolition of the twin towers with such lethal efficiency must
inevitably bring some sense of pride: That they have at last
achieved something that no westerner thought they were capable
of, and which compels the world to take note of them
Westerners have so far been unable to look beyond the immediate
atrocity and provocation, to think more carefully about the root
causes of the terrorism. We in the West may be too busy
portraying the terrorists as cowards and fanatics to realize that we
are up against a religious movement which operates at a deeper
level than hijacks and mass murder; and which is more likely to be
stimulated than intimidated by the arrival of western warships in the
Gulf. Anthony Sampson, author of "The Seven Sisters" and
"The Arms Bazaar," contributed this comment to the
International Herald Tribune.