My foray into that land of lunacy consisted of an e-mail blast (This was pre Facebook and Twitter) alleging breathlessly that the elusive terrorist capo had been smuggled into Canada by the Mossad and was living in Montreal east sans beard and robes. My top secret sources advised that he was earning his keep by delivering bags of fresh bagels for a Jewish bakery. He had taken the pseudonym "Ozzie Ben" and because of his daily labours was known on the Anglo street as Ozzie Bun Laden. Further, Mossad had retained the services of a local Jewish biker gang called Hillel's Angels to provide him protection.
As a conspiracy generator I was a failure. Not even the Toronto Sun bit on it. The RCMP never called. CSIS yawned. The CIA did not bother to tap my 'phone let alone stuff me in a sack and Fedex me to Syria to answer some friendly questions about my sources.
I failed. To console myself I did some solid research and wrote a long article about the historical context and longer term implications of the 911 attack on America and the rise of Al Qaeda. It was well-received by all readers including the print media. But no publication was prepared to print it because it ran so against the grain of the then prevailing public narrative.
I re-read the article today and am dismayed at how little we have learned over the past nine years. Here, unedited is what I said in 2002. I stand by it. More, I recommend that you take the time to read it.
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THE WORLD OF OSAMA BIN LADEN
March, 2002
"Man would fain be great and sees that he is littls; would fain be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of love and esteem of men and sees that his faults merit only their aversion and contempt. The embarrassment wherein he finds himself produces in him the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults".
Pascal, Pencees
"...a mortal hatred against that truth..." Bin Laden. Jerry Falwell. Arafat. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in some ways. Even our own mostly harmless Canadian Prime Minister is, in minor and silly ways a sometime stranger to the truth.
Truth has gone begging. In its place we have the cant of the Believers and the fierce mass movements they inspire. Of these - and there are many about - Bin Laden's pan-Islamic fundamentalism has our exclusive attention, for obvious reasons. We do not understand it. Certainly, the Americans do not. George Bush is at pains to declare that America's War is not against Islam but rather against an amorphous group called terrorists or madmen or Islamic fundamentalists. Millions of Muslims worldwide would take issue with his claim.. For them, the war is religious and the President can think and say whatever he wants without changing that fact in the least.
Let us not adopt the ugly slur that most Muslims are terrorists or murderers prepared to strike down the infidels in the name of Allah. Remember - Germans were by no means unanimous in the desire to destroy the Jews and "misfits" in order to create an Aryan heaven but the Holocaust occurred. There is a parallel here which might help us understand and deal with the current terror walking the land. The parallel lies within the nature of mass movements and mob psychology writ large.
The Bin Laden Movement - it is best to call it that - is not a social dysfunction exclusive to Muslims, or Arabs or any other ethnic, national or religious group. We all have that capacity to go collectively mad and visit unspeakable acts on others.
The first step toward understanding the Bin Laden Movement, which has millions of supporters and apologists is available close to home among fundamentalist Christians. There is an anti-abortion organization, one of many, called Pro Life Virginia - Army of God. It is led by the charismatic and ferocious Reverend Donald Spitz. To call him bellicose would be to understate his passion. Spitz does not make apocalyptic statements from a cave somewhere in Afghanistan. He is a thoroughly modern Believer with an elaborate website (www.armyofgod.com). Read it - all of it. From his perspective, he and his followers are engaged in a Holy War against the infidels, which to him are all those who provide abortions or submit to them or support, even through indifference those who do. He proclaims a higher Biblical morality which permits he and his adherents the right to kill or counsel the killing of abortionists. Army of God has its heroes and martyrs, these being people that we would call murderers, terrorists, psychopaths or all of the above. Each martyr has an honoured place on the website rather in the manner of Palestinian suicide bomber photos on village walls. Currently, first among martyrs is "Atomic Dog" who shot and killed Dr. Bernard Slepian in front of his family.
Spitz and others like him have formidable followings but most Americans, whatever they think about abortion, birth control or Biblical authority despise his bloody extremism. Nor is the law amused. Police and courts will act when Spitz terrorists resort to violence but US constitutional protections ensure that Army of God can de facto counsel criminal behaviour.
To understand Spitz and his Army of God is to understand Bin Laden et al in a more helpful way; in a way that might lead to action capable of countering the extraordinary danger he represents to Western democracies and the Arab/Muslim diaspora he presumes to speak for.
America's current initiatives seem to be yesterday's solutions to tomorrow's problems. Bin Laden is the face and voice of a mass movement involving millions of people. That movement has no geographic epicentre, headquarters or uniformed army - like the Army of God. But it has soldiers willing to give their lives in the service of a higher moral calling as 911 demonstrated. It follows that we need to speculate that the bombing/invasion of Afghanistan and supporting the rapacious Northern Alliance may do nothing more than replace one ugly dictatorship with another while turning an impoverished country into a major supplier of crushed stone. An attack may also serve to strengthen Bin Laden's movement - hardly the avowed intention of the Bush Administration.
What is the genesis of the Army of God? How does this vicious, vitriolic lot sustain itself, find funding and gather new adherents? How does Bin Laden focus and fuel the anger and sometime zealotry of millions of Muslims - particularly Arab Muslims? The answer to both questions may be the same.
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Truth has gone begging. In its place we have the cant of the Believers and the fierce mass movements they inspire. Of these - and there are many about - Bin Laden's pan-Islamic fundamentalism has our exclusive attention, for obvious reasons. We do not understand it. Certainly, the Americans do not. George Bush is at pains to declare that America's War is not against Islam but rather against an amorphous group called terrorists or madmen or Islamic fundamentalists. Millions of Muslims worldwide would take issue with his claim.. For them, the war is religious and the President can think and say whatever he wants without changing that fact in the least.
Let us not adopt the ugly slur that most Muslims are terrorists or murderers prepared to strike down the infidels in the name of Allah. Remember - Germans were by no means unanimous in the desire to destroy the Jews and "misfits" in order to create an Aryan heaven but the Holocaust occurred. There is a parallel here which might help us understand and deal with the current terror walking the land. The parallel lies within the nature of mass movements and mob psychology writ large.
The Bin Laden Movement - it is best to call it that - is not a social dysfunction exclusive to Muslims, or Arabs or any other ethnic, national or religious group. We all have that capacity to go collectively mad and visit unspeakable acts on others.
The first step toward understanding the Bin Laden Movement, which has millions of supporters and apologists is available close to home among fundamentalist Christians. There is an anti-abortion organization, one of many, called Pro Life Virginia - Army of God. It is led by the charismatic and ferocious Reverend Donald Spitz. To call him bellicose would be to understate his passion. Spitz does not make apocalyptic statements from a cave somewhere in Afghanistan. He is a thoroughly modern Believer with an elaborate website (www.armyofgod.com). Read it - all of it. From his perspective, he and his followers are engaged in a Holy War against the infidels, which to him are all those who provide abortions or submit to them or support, even through indifference those who do. He proclaims a higher Biblical morality which permits he and his adherents the right to kill or counsel the killing of abortionists. Army of God has its heroes and martyrs, these being people that we would call murderers, terrorists, psychopaths or all of the above. Each martyr has an honoured place on the website rather in the manner of Palestinian suicide bomber photos on village walls. Currently, first among martyrs is "Atomic Dog" who shot and killed Dr. Bernard Slepian in front of his family.
Spitz and others like him have formidable followings but most Americans, whatever they think about abortion, birth control or Biblical authority despise his bloody extremism. Nor is the law amused. Police and courts will act when Spitz terrorists resort to violence but US constitutional protections ensure that Army of God can de facto counsel criminal behaviour.
To understand Spitz and his Army of God is to understand Bin Laden et al in a more helpful way; in a way that might lead to action capable of countering the extraordinary danger he represents to Western democracies and the Arab/Muslim diaspora he presumes to speak for.
America's current initiatives seem to be yesterday's solutions to tomorrow's problems. Bin Laden is the face and voice of a mass movement involving millions of people. That movement has no geographic epicentre, headquarters or uniformed army - like the Army of God. But it has soldiers willing to give their lives in the service of a higher moral calling as 911 demonstrated. It follows that we need to speculate that the bombing/invasion of Afghanistan and supporting the rapacious Northern Alliance may do nothing more than replace one ugly dictatorship with another while turning an impoverished country into a major supplier of crushed stone. An attack may also serve to strengthen Bin Laden's movement - hardly the avowed intention of the Bush Administration.
What is the genesis of the Army of God? How does this vicious, vitriolic lot sustain itself, find funding and gather new adherents? How does Bin Laden focus and fuel the anger and sometime zealotry of millions of Muslims - particularly Arab Muslims? The answer to both questions may be the same.
Page Break
