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Linden MacIntyre: YOU DID MENTION THAT WHEN WE SAY THAT THE GLOBAL JIHAD DRIVEN BY THE INSPIRATION OF THE AL QAEDA IS A MATTER OF SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES. IT'S NOT. BUT, IN YOUR WRITINGS YOU SAY THAT WE MAKE A BIG MISTAKE BY UNDERVALUING THE ROLE OF FOREIGN POLICY. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN THAT FOR ME?
Michael Scheuer: Islam is at the end of the day all about justice. Where westerners are very concerned with freedom, liberty first of all, Islamic culture is basically striving toward justice for various social groups. And they see U.S. foreign policy and most of our foreign policies have been backed by NATO and other countries, as an injustice, as an attack on their faith and on their brethren.
And we really are losing out because of the interpretation that has been put on this by American leaders, that this has nothing to do with what we do in the Islamic world. In fact, it has everything to do with what we do.
Not only the impact of our policies but, in an odd sense, the genius of
Bin Laden lies in the fact that he hasn't focused on the things that
the Ayatollah Khomeini focused on, for example. The Ayatollah clearly,
wanted a jihad against the Americans because we were degenerate, we were
debauched, our morals were bad, we drank beer, we had women who wore skirts
or nothing. And no one blew themselves up for that. Even when they attacked
us, when Hezbollah attacked us in Lebanon, they did it under the umbrella
of Khomeini's rhetoric but it was nationalist move to get us off
of their turf.
Bin Laden's genius is to have found for the Islamic world a kind
of a glue. When we talk about Muslims, you cannot assume that the phrase
'Muslims' identifies everyone in the Islamic world thinking the same,
feeling the same.
Islam is a civilization that is fractured linguistically, ethnically, sectarian-wise as ours is. What Bin Laden has done though is to identify a number of issues that are tangible and visceral for Muslims. His indictment list of western support for Arab tyranny, our ability to keep oil prices too low at least until recently, our occupation of the Arabian Peninsula. This list of things is clear. It's validated by Arabic satellite television. But more important than that, it gives for example a Chechen Muslim and a Muslim in Mindinao who have virtually no commonalities in culture, language, climate or employment, anything, it gives them something they can both agree on.
The presence of the Americans on the Arabian Peninsula is bad because the prophet said it was bad. And whether you're in Mindinao or Chechnya you're going to agree with that. And so Bin Laden's genius has been to focus on issues that unite and are not affected to a great extent by the diversity of Islam.
Michael Scheuer: It validated for the Muslim world virtually all of Bin Laden's rhetoric. He had always said the Americans will destroy any strong Muslim regime and we did. Any strong Muslim regime that threatens Israel, and we did. He said the Americans only want oil and of course Iraq has the largest reserves, second largest reserves. And he said that we will always replace God's law with man-made law. And finally, that we intended to occupy and destroy Islamic sanctities. And I suspect that in our government, very few people knew that Iraq was the second holiest place in Islam, after the Arabian Peninsula.
So, we validated his rhetoric. As important though, is we checked off all of the boxes that require in Quraanic Law or under the Sharia; Al Jihad. An infidel power invaded a Muslim country without provocation and occupied it. It fills in all the blanks on the,'‘what's required for a jihad' page. And so between validating Bin Laden and satisfying the religious requirements for jihad, Iraq was an absolute disaster in the war on terrorism.
Michael Scheuer: Well, I don't think I try to get away with anything. What I tried to do is to present the evidence that's available and which no one has been able to refute.
Not even the Arab governments who own their media have been able to denigrate Bin Laden as a man. He is clearly an odd combination of a 12th century theologian and a 21st century CEO. He runs an absolutely unique organization in the Islamic world. It's multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, multi-national.
He is a combat veteran, three times wounded. He has a huge reputation in the Islamic world for generosity and leadership. He's a man who speaks eloquent, almost poetic, Arabic according to Bernard Lewis. And in a culture that values oral communication above all other kinds, it's a tremendous advantage. And he's obviously a very devout, some would say a vigorous, fanatic, Muslim believer.
All of those things create a personality that is not abnormal in psychological terms. He's just a good man in his culture waging war against us.
I try to point out that we should attribute to him the same qualities we attributed to Erwin Rommel, the German field marshal. He was such a dangerous enemy that we had to respect and understand him before we could defeat him. Bin Laden falls into the same category.
Linden MacIntyre: AND I WONDER IF IT HAS NOT GIVEN A FAIRLY SPECIFIC NOURISHMENT TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF, MAYBE SORT OF FRINGE, MAYBE STUPID, MISGUIDED, BUT NONETHELESS POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS CELL GROUPS IN PLACES LIKE THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA AND BRITAIN AND WHEREVER.
Michael Scheuer: The common denominators of all these groups were that they were responding to some impact of western foreign policy, usually Iraq. The other common denominator is they had no direct connection back to Al Qaeda in terms of funding or commanding control. These were not operatives of Osama Bin Laden.
And yet when we arrested them, the men who were arrested either through their words or through the documents we captured when we arrested them, very clearly were inspired to do what they were doing by Bin Laden's rhetoric or by the deeds of Al Qaeda. And to me that's a very, very dangerous situation because we have added a third level of threat to the threat we face.
Michael Scheuer: Bin Laden has been very clear in quoting
the prophet in saying that, look at, the companions of the prophet, those
who succeeded him, the youngsters that succeeded the prophet were all young
men. They did the fighting, they did the expansion of Islam, they defended
Islam against enemies and it's the natural role for the youth to do that.
And Bin Laden very clearly says things like, we, Al Qaeda's senior leaders,
have been fighting since our youth. We were instructed in how to do this
by our elders. We are passing these instructions and guidance on to you.
It will be your job, not only to fight after we're gone but to instruct
the next generation.
Michael Scheuer: It does. It becomes the safe haven that not only permitted the Afghan mujahadeen to train, arm, re-supply, receive medical aid and launch attacks back into Afghanistan, but it became almost a laboratory for Islamists, people who were teaching the necessity of the Muslim world to defend itself against the onslaught of the west.
WE miss the fact that Al Qaeda and its allies are basically a middle- and upper middle-class organization. People with futures, people with educations."
One thing, we do ourselves a disservice in fighting this enemy is by claiming that poverty, illiteracy, lack of health care, lack of employment drives, is the motivator, for jihad and terrorism. It's simply not the case.
Because the Internet is so powerful, it appeals to people who are illiterate. WE miss the fact that Al Qaeda and its allies are basically a middle- and upper middle-class organization. People with futures, people with educations. And so Pakistan remains very important. There's no denying that.
But its importance is less than it used to be because of the way communications works today.
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