Sunday news shows: What would we do if we captured Osama bin Laden? - 30-Sep-07 - Generational Dynamics

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Sep-07

Sunday news shows: What would we do if we captured Osama bin Laden?

And the Democrats refuse to commit to end Iraq war even by 2013.

Al-Qaeda expert Lawrence Wright provided a kind of "screenplay" scenario for the capture of Osama bin Laden.

One of the most widely asked questions today is: Why haven't we yet caught Osama bin Laden?

Lawrence Wright, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, provided an answer to that question and another one: What would we do if we captured him? The answers were provided on Face the Nation on Sunday:

Bob Schieffer: Why can't we find Osama bin laden?

Lawrence Wright with Bob Schieffer on <i>Face the Nation</i> <font face=Arial size=-2>(Source: CBS)</font>

Lawrence Wright with Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation (Source: CBS)

Lawrence Wright: It may very well be, Bob, that we more or less HAVE found him. We know that he's in the tribal areas, probably. And yet, we decided not to get him, because going into the tribal areas to actually find him might destabilize Pakistan. At least this is the view of a lot of American policy makers. So in a general way, we have found him. In a specific way, we don't know exactly where he is, probably, but the hunt for bin Laden has essentially stopped at the borders.

Bob Schieffer: If we caught bin laden, what would we do with him?

Lawrence Wright: The CIA asked me that question, because I'm a screenwriter.

They appealed to me for a scenario, and I said I can't write a screenplay for the CIA because I'm a reporter, but I'll tell you what I think, in the form of an op-ed.

First of all, he's the most famous man in the world - he's going to be one of the most famous men in history. So you don't just deal with bin Laden the man. You have to deal with "bin-Laden-ism" and the legacy that he's going to leave for untold generations.

So if you find him, don't kill him, because that's what he wants, and his martyrdom will seal that legacy in amber for all eternity.

But don't bring him to America - not right away. Take him first of all to Kenya where, on August 7, 1998, he set off a bomb in front of the American embassy and killed over 200 people. More than 150 were blinded by the flying glass. Let Osama bin Laden sit in a courtroom in Nairobi and tell 150 blind Africans that he was just striking at a symbol of American power.

Then, after that, take him to Tanzania where, on the same day, he set off another bomb in front of another American embassy killing 11 people, all of the Muslims.

Al-Qaeda excuses that because it was Friday, and "good Muslims" would be in a mosque. It would be a wonderful venue to ask, "What is a good Muslim?"

Then you can have him answer for the Cole bombing, and the 3000 people who died on 9/11, and you could take him so many other places. Just take him one last place. Just take him home to Saudi Arabia, where hundreds of Saudis and ex-pats have died, and try him under Sharia law. And if he's convicted, he'll be taken to a square, a "chop-chop square" in downtown Riyadh. And the Saudi custom is that the executioner goes out and beseeches the crowd, who are composed of the families of the victims of the condemned man to forgive him. And if they can't do that, then the executioner will do his job and bin Laden will be taken and buried in an unmarked Wahhabi graveyard. I think in that way you can begin to roll back some of his legacies."

Wright later added that bin Laden's al-Qaeda has suffered many defeats and is weakened, but worldwide al-Qaeda has been strengthened because of alliances among many terrorist groups.

I would add the following to this, from a Generational Dynamics point of view.

Suicide bombings and other terrorist acts committed by groups loosely related to al-Qaeda are explained by generational factors, as I described in a series of articles following the July 7, 2005, London subway bombings. This was summarized in last December's article on the MI5 chief's speech, saying that the U.K. population contains thousands of Islamic terrorists and sympathizers.

We're seeing that suicide bombers only come from societies that have entered generational Crisis periods, and not before. This indicates that when a society enters a generational Crisis period, the society becomes fundamentally changed, so that the creation of suicide bombers becomes possible. (And as I showed in my analysis on Iraqi Sunnis turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq, there are virtually NO Iraqi suicide bombers, since Iraq is in a generational Awakening era; they all have to be imported from Jordan or Saudi Arabia.)

Further findings, obtained by combining Generational Dynamics research with Robert Pape's study of suicide bombers, published in the book Dying to Win, we find that suicide bombers justify their terrorist acts as "altruistic suicide." Pape found that suicide bombers most likely come from countries occupied by another country, and his research shows that they come overwhelming from countries that have passed through a generational crisis era without having a crisis war. In these countries, the parents have accepted the occupation, albeit bitterly and reluctantly. But their impatient children take it upon themselves to free their parents' generation from this occupation by this unique form of altruistic suicide.

In the case of the London subway bombers, the perpetrators had backgrounds in Pakistan and were bitter about the Kashmir region, disputed between Pakistan and India. They were England-born citizens, but had developed a generational "Hero - Prophet" relationship with radical clerics in Pakistan; that is, the suicide bombers become "heroes" through their altruistic suicide, and they're guided by the Pakistani clerics who assume a kind of spiritual "prophet" role toward the "heroes."

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this Prophet/Hero relationship is extremely powerful. This is how crisis wars begin. During generational Crisis eras, young people are confused by the lack of direction in society as a whole, and they turn to these "Prophets," based on the appeal that they can become "Heroes."

So Lawrence Wright is correct when he says that al-Qaeda linked groups are becoming stronger in many countries around the world, as they're fed by foreign fighters linked to countries in generational Crisis eras.

And Wright is TECHNICALLY correct when he said that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda has been weakened militarily.

But what I've shown is that the bin Laden's al-Qaeda has been getting increasingly STRONGER in this spiritual "Prophet" sense. Al-Qaeda linked terrorists in many countries may not be working under bin Laden's direct orders, but they're working under the powerful influence of bin Laden's "teachings," as adopted by clerics in Pakistan.

Lawrence Wright's warning not to turn bin Laden into a martyr is certainly correct. A dead, martyred bin Laden would become an even more powerful symbol to these Pakistani "Prophet" clerics.

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Another issue touched on at various times in the Sunday news talk shows is that the leading Democratic candidates for President have refused to commit to end the Iraq war even by 2013.

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Here's an AP news story on this subject:

"The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.

"I think it's hard to project four years from now," said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation's first primary state.

"It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

"I cannot make that commitment," said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina."

This doesn't surprise me in the least. Here are some of the points that I've been making about Iraq on this web site since 2003:

The Iraq war began in 1991, not 2003 as everyone seems to believe, and continues to this day. It's been going on for 16 years, since we reponded to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1991. It escalated sharply in 1999 with almost daily bombing of no-fly zones. The 2003 ground war was another escalation, but if we hadn't done it, we'd still be bombing no-fly zones with completely unpredictable results.

The 2003 Iraq ground war was not an impromptu decision by the Bush administration. Neither public nor Congressional opinion would have tolerated Saddam's continued intransigence. If Al Gore had been President after 9/11, he would have done the same thing, or he would have lost in 2004.

Iraq is in a generational Awakening era, since it's been just one generation past the genocidal Iran/Iraq crisis war of the 1980s. This means that a crisis civil war is impossible. The Iraq war has NEVER been a civil war, and could never be a civil war.

Just as there was no choice but to enter Iraq in 2003, today there is no choice but to stay in Iraq. The Democratic presidential candidates' sudden shyness in calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq is based on this reality.

As I've said many times on this web site in the last few years, my expectation is that we'll still be in Iraq when the Clash of Civilizations world war begins, and we'll withdraw at that time because our forces will be needed elsewhere. (30-Sep-07) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Sep-07 Sunday news shows: What would we do if we captured Osama bin Laden?

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Sep-07
Sunday news shows: What would we do if we captured Osama bin Laden?