A rchive Date
[ 13-10-2001 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/corbella.html
Empowering the enemy
U.S. should not underestimate bin Laden's ability to communicate
By LICIA CORBELLA - Calgary Sun
October 13, 2001
It appears as if the western world's leaders still underestimate the Islamic terrorists who masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.
On Wednesday, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice urged TV networks not to air pre-recorded communications from terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and his associates in their entirety.
"At best Osama bin Laden's message is ... calling on terrorists to kill Americans," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Thursday in explaining the decision on the one-month anniversary of that very Black Tuesday.
"At worst, it could be actually signalling his operatives."
Fleischer said the White House was acting out of suspicion, rather than evidence of any specific coded instruction.
So let's see if I understand this. We had 19 men, many who did not know each other, who on four separate planes willingly flew into both World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, and crashed obviously short of another intended symbolic target in a field in Pennsylvania - all within an hour or so of each other in a highly co-ordinated, sophisticated effort - and the White House thinks these people need to rely on CNN to air their leader's instructions for them?
It's frightening. When you underestimate your enemy you empower them. On the surface, it appears as though that is happening here.
Just because bin Laden and many of the leaders in his army of suicidal fanatics dress in a medieval way does not mean they are not highly educated and sophisticated people.
That's not to say I don't partially agree with Rice. There was no doubt when listening to bin Laden and his murderous henchmen's speeches that they were making a definite call to arms for their followers.
What's more, their speeches were designed to recruit new members into their murderous plans. You don't have to be a psychologist or military expert to figure that out.
Rice is correct when she condemned CNN and other large networks for running bin Laden's pre-recorded message live. Clearly, not a great idea, since they had no way of knowing what he was going to say. They should have watched the tape first and then decided whether or not to edit it or run it in its entirety, something they would do with any other unsolicited, pre-recorded tape.
Nevertheless, it's extremely important for the general public around the world to listen to this man, hear his peculiar brand of hate and take what he says very seriously.
During the Second World War, segments of Hitler's propaganda speeches were aired in North America with the intention of giving the homefront ever greater resolve to crush the enemy and continue with the sacrifices it was making on behalf of liberty.
It's entirely possible that there will be some fringe elements in North America that will join bin Laden's ranks as a result of CNN's airing his speech.
But when the body bags of American and other allied soldiers start returning to North America and Europe, every broadcast of that evil man will help to prevent what happened during the Vietnam War - weakening American resolve.
It's interesting, too, that Rice et al are concerned about coded messages when very direct calls to violence just a couple of months ago were outright ignored.
In an April conference in Cairo supporting Sheik Umar Abd Al-Rahman, who was convicted and imprisoned in the U.S. for his involvement in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, speakers threatened additional terrorist attacks against American targets if their leader was not released.
A report in the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat, on April 25 quoted the Sheik's defence attorney, Muntasir Al-Zayyat, as saying: "When the Jihad organization (which the Sheik heads) found out that the CIA was involved in the extradition of three of its people, from Albania to Egypt, it decided to get involved in the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Therefore, once (the U.S.) harms a cleric at the level of Sheik Abd Al-Rahman, the revenge will be (accordingly) stronger and more violent and its impact wider."
In other words the bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Obviously, nobody - except the perpetrators and the architects of Sept. 11 - could have imagined people using commercial airliners filled with innocents to be used like cruise missiles in a suicide attack.
Also, such invective is so commonplace, so everyday in most Islamic countries, that the American authorities obviously paid little attention to such warnings.
They underestimated their enemy - their sophistication and resolve - and barely bothered to invest in espionage of such groups.
That has changed. But it appears the U.S. leaders are still underestimating bin Laden. They say the U.S. hits on communications installations in Afghanistan will make it more difficult for bin Laden to contact his terrorist cells around the world.
Like the reporters filing from the rugged hills in Afghanistan, there is no doubt that bin Laden - a Saudi Arabian multimillionaire - is using the top satellite technology to send out messages to his top generals who will then contact the al-Qaida cells around the world.
When U.S. officials say that Osama bin Laden's followers need to hear their master's messages via CNN or NBC they are either fooling themselves or fooling us.
I really hope it's the latter.
Licia Corbella, editor of the Calgary Sun, can be reached at 403-250-4129 or by e-mail at licia.corbella@cal.sunpub.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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