The man with the dyed beard
returns By Ramzy Baroud
LONDON - Osama bin Laden has once again
managed to occupy the stage and to insist on his
relevance to the story of September 11, 2001. In
his most recent video message, released by Reuters
a few days before the sixth anniversary of the
terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon,
bin Laden voiced some typically absurd statements,
calling on Americans to embrace Islam and so
forth.
What is really worth noting in bin
Laden's message, however, is not the message
itself, but the underlying factors that can be
deduced from it. First, bin
Laden wished to convey that he is alive and well
and thus the US military efforts have failed
miserably.
Second, his reappearance - a
first since October 2004 - will be analyzed
endlessly by hundreds of "experts" who will
inundate widespread audiences with every possible
interpretation - the fact that he looked healthy,
that he dyed his beard, that he dressed in Arab
attire as opposed to a military fatigue and a
Kalashnikov by his side, that he read from a paper
and so on.
Conspiracy theorists are
already up in arms, some questioning whether the
character in the video is bin Laden at all, and
others wondering why the tape was promoted by a US
terrorist watch group - SITE (Search for
International Terrorist Entities) Intelligence
Group - even before its release by Reuters, and
why it didn't make it directly to the various
extremist websites first, as is usually the case.
The news and the Internet are already rife
with stories that are connected with bin Laden's
re-emergence. A prominent Muslim scholar told
Agence France-Press that the dyed beard is a "sign
of war" according to the Salafi Islamic school to
which bin Laden belongs. Go figure.
Others, who wish to highlight the fact
that US security efforts have managed to prevent
further attacks on US soil, would rather emphasize
factors such as bin Laden not having made any
direct threats (a supposed sign of weakness).
Bin Laden has indeed succeeded in
diverting attention from the legacy and meaning of
September 11 by reducing it to a mere fight
between a disgruntled man - whose whereabouts
since the Tora Bora Mountains battle in
Afghanistan remains uncertain - and a president
who dragged his country into a costly, unjustified
and unpopular war.
The reality, however,
is starkly different from this caricature
reductionism, which the experts on "Islamic
terrorism" fail to explain. For those who have
shaped their careers on deciphering and decoding
bin Laden, worrying about the bigger picture would
hardly be self-serving.
But indeed there
is a bigger picture, one that bin Laden's message,
and the touting of the importance of that message,
are unfortunately undermining. While there are
lessons that must be gleaned from six years of
tragic war, terror and wanton killing and
destruction, these lessons hardly include the need
for a wholesale conversion of Americans to Islam
(one need not pose as an Islamic scholar to claim
that such a call is un-Islamic).
For bin
Laden somehow to represent existing opposition to
President George W Bush's policy would indeed be
very unfortunate and would actually detract from
these important lessons.
First, although
they repeatedly voice grievances similar to those
held by millions of Muslims (and others) around
the world, bin Laden and al-Qaeda do not speak for
or represent mainstream Muslims. Mainstream Islam
has historically been grounded on tolerance and
moderation, qualities that bin Laden and his
fanatics hardly represent.
Second,
extremism in the Muslim world may be on the rise,
but this doesn't pertain to bin Laden and his
scarce messages. The obvious fact is that
extremism (Muslim or any other) is intrinsically
related to areas of conflict and never happens in
a vacuum or under stable socioeconomic realities.
A study of suicide bombings and foreign
occupations, oppression and radical interpretation
of religious (or any ideological) texts,
massacres, wanton killings and calls for revenge
will show that each of these factors is greatly
related to the other.
Third, the war on
Iraq was a pre-calculated move that dates to 2002,
when US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz
and his neo-conservative ilk began pushing for
forceful and hostile foreign policy. September 11
merely provided the opportunity to justify such a
war, even though those terrorists had nothing to
do with Iraq.
Fourth, the combination of
fear, public panic and war continue to undermine
US democracy. Under the guise of an ill-defined
"war on terror", Americans have paid an
irreversible price - more Americans have died in
Iraq than did in the September 11 attacks; the
numbers of Americans wounded in Iraq top 20,000;
Americans are spied on; people with integrity are
losing their jobs for taking a moral stance and
opposing the Bush administration; respected
intellectuals are questioned at airports and
community groups of conscientious citizens are
monitored as security threats.
Fifth, it
is America's war on Iraq, underreported killing
fields in Afghanistan and blind support and
financing of Israel's brutal occupation of
Palestine that largely fuel terrorism and
extremism and which are costing the US its
so-called battle for "hearts and minds".
The obvious truth is that such a battle
can never be won when a million Iraqis are killed
and 4 million are made homeless in their own
country. No "hearts and minds" can be captured
when Palestinians are killed in Israel's "routine"
daily missions in Gaza and the West Bank, or when
poor Afghan peasants are blown to bits in random
"searches" for bin Laden.
Indeed, it is in
the Bush administration's interest for bin Laden
to disseminate his messages at a time when some
important and overdue questions ought to be asked.
It isn't bin Laden and his dyed beard that should
be flashing on our screens on this tragic day, but
the disgraced faces of those who exploited the
tragedy of a stricken nation to inflict tragedies
on others.
September 11 should be a day on
which we remember those who died in New York, near
Washington and in Pennsylvania, and also in Kabul,
Baghdad and Gaza, so that we can work together at
bringing all the culprits to account.
Ramzy Baroud is a
Palestinian-American author and editor of
PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been
published in numerous newspapers and journals
worldwide. His latest book is The Second
Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's
Struggle (Pluto Press, London). Read more about
Baroud at his website ramzybaroud.net.
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