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video released Thursday is overwhelming evidence for the role of
Osama bin Laden as mastermind of the terror attacks of September
11. Its effect nearly everywhere will be to persuade viewers that
he was responsible for initiating the attacks. And his own words
attest that his role went beyond inspiring the perpetrators. Bin
Laden claims in the video to have been in regular communication
with the operatives themselves. He professes to have known the logistical
plan, the timing, and the participants in the hijackings. In the
video's most hideous segment, he tells his guests that he was the
most "optimistic" of the planners, believing that the
planes crashing into the World Trade Center would bring down all
the floors above impact.
If by some
misfortune, bin Laden is captured and not killed, this video will
be prime evidence for the prosecution. Certainly its effect on opinion
in the West will be to silence all those who claim that the "war
on terror" could be a case of mistaken identity. But what of
Arab and Muslim opinion? Some hope has been expressed that the release
of the video will impact the so-called "Arab street,"
which is ritually skeptical of American claims. In many places in
the Arab world, doubts have been expressed about bin Laden's role,
and in some places elaborate conspiracy theories have flourished,
attributing the attacks to just about everyone but Arab hijackers.
Will it make a difference to these doubters when bin Laden is overheard
openly boasting of his triumph?
The answer
depends on the Arabs in question. They fall into three broad categories.
Those Arabs
who decided long ago that the Mossad engineered the attacks are
beyond the influence of any evidence. They live in a world haunted
by dark conspiracies, where hidden hands move everything. To their
minds, a fake video would be a perfect tool in the conspiracy against
Islam. They will claim that the video has been staged or doctored
— that it is black propaganda meant to dupe the Muslims. Certainly
there will be many who doubt the video's authenticity. They will
assert that a technological superpower would have no difficulty
faking the entire scene.
Then there
are bin Laden's admirers — those who have celebrated the attacks
of September 11. They will welcome the video, since it confirms
that bin Laden is not some false idol of their own making, but the
authentic author of the blow delivered by Muslim "martyrs"
to an arrogant America. Of course, had the video been released a
month ago, their joy would have been unmitigated. Now it is mixed
with the realization that their "true Islam" also paid
a heavy price for September 11: the destruction of the Islamic Emirate
of Afghanistan, the ideal Islamic regime. They had expected America
to suffer yet another blow in Afghanistan. Instead, the Taliban
collapsed, many Arab fighters were slaughtered, and bin Laden was
put to flight. Perhaps there will even be a few who will see bin
Laden on video, and curse him for his own obvious arrogance, and
his cocky self-assurance, as though God were guiding his every act.
Between these
two extremes, there is a sizeable body of opinion that takes this
view: yes, Muslims were responsible for September 11; no, bin Laden
had nothing to do with it. In this view, America jumped to a convenient
conclusion: It needed to hammer somebody to quench its thirst
for revenge, and bin Laden fit the bill. The entire Afghan war,
in this view, is a case of mistaken identity. If there were a conspiracy,
bin Laden had little to do with it; America simply used him as a
pretext for waging a war it had long wanted to wage in Afghanistan.
This argument
has rested, in part, on the notion that bin Laden was incapable
of mounting such an operation in the first place. A version of this
notion, as filtered through American academe, can be found in a
statement
by Fawaz Gerges, a chaired professor at Sarah Lawrence University,
made immediately after the attacks. (Gerges had just returned from
two years in the Middle East, where he researched Islamic movements
on the dime of the MacArthur Foundation.)
I doubt it
very much if Bin Laden is capable now and on his own of masterminding
such complex and well-coordinated attacks in the heartland of
America and in several U.S. cities. He has been under siege for
the last few years. The United States has committed considerable
resources to restricting his movements and reach. All his resources
are monitored minute by minute. We have an army of agents keeping
track of every move of his. Although the Taliban have refused
his requests to expel him from Afghanistan, they have restricted
his movements and kept him under a tight leash.
(In July 2000,
the same Gerges told the Washington
Post: "Osama bin Laden is really a spent force. He
has little support outside Afghanistan. He is in a state of siege
by the U.S. and other intelligence organizations.")
In fact, the
United States never claimed to have bin Laden under a "state
of siege," or to be capable of "tracking his every move,"
"minute by minute." This is not the case now, and it was
not the case then. But those who did believe this, especially in
the Arab world, have refused to accept even the possibility of bin
Laden's responsibility for September 11.
If the video
has any impact in the Arab and Muslim worlds, it will have it upon
these viewers. They will squirm in discomfort on viewing an Osama
bin Laden completely at odds with their prior assumptions. Here
is a man in command, and a commander in the know, meeting freely
with visitors, and boasting openly of his role. He does so without
the slightest fear that anyone might be monitoring his words. Here
is a man who supposedly refused to allow any electrical equipment
in his presence (it might betray his location) gabbing away in front
of someone's home video camera. Here is a man who appears absolutely
confident that he is safe and secure in Taliban hands — even
after September 11. In the famous bin Laden recruitment video,
it was clear that he would; in this video, he makes it clear
that he could — and did.
Of course,
it is always possible that many of these viewers will write off
the video as a fake, or assert that despite bin Laden's confession,
he could not have done it. Arab journalists and intellectuals are
notoriously impervious to evidence. But there are a few who have
suspended judgment on the war — pretty much the most one could
have hoped for. The video offers them a ladder down from the fence,
and provides them with ammunition they can use against their critics.
There is one
more aspect worth emphasizing. The Taliban, it will be recalled,
professed a willingness to turn over bin Laden, provided the United
States gave proof of his responsibility. Yet bin Laden himself,
right under their noses and before a large group, boasted of his
responsibility. The Taliban must have known this, and probably knew
of everything else, quite conceivably in advance. The video is thus
an indirect but persuasive indictment of bin Laden's hosts, whose
removal from power was a stated American war aim — and one
that has already been achieved.
So it is useful
to have the video, and it is good that it was released. But the
most effective American propaganda was and remains this: victory.
So far, the war has done much to restore awe for America in the
Arab and Muslim worlds — an awe that had been eroded by years
of irresolution. As bin Laden put it in the video: "When people
see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the
strong horse." America is now the strong horse. Some Arabs
and Muslims may not like it, but they do fear it, and that is nearly
as good.
Likewise, it's
great to have bin Laden indicting himself on film. But it's no substitute
for the real flesh-and-blood bin Laden. When he next appears on
video, he should be either dead or blindfolded — and the impact
of that scene on Arab opinion will be indisputable.
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