Abstract
The main idea of the current paper is not to reject reasons why Bin Laden arranged the attacks but to describe what drove him to carry out and plan the events leading to 9/11. In other words, his motives and political situation in the Middle East are analyzed in the framework of strategic thinking and long-term implications on jihad and radical Muslim movement in general. The structure of the paper consists of outlining and description of each of the reasons Bin Laden had suggested himself and their fitting into general strategy of jihad. Then strategy of jihad and meaning of the 9/11 are explained in the framework of long-termed perspective. Appropriate conclusions are given in the end of the paper.
The Driving Force of 9/11
In the last decade, the issue of 9/11 was analyzed from all possible perspectives. From historical and interdisciplinary approaches the event became a starting point of the new era of American and World history. We know now that the world is more global and interconnected than ever before and that instability and insecurity in remote parts of the world can be felt in the middle of the Wall Street. We know where Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran are. We followed their histories and development of terrorist activities. We even know why democratic transition in Libya is crucial for America and the Western world. What we do not know, after ten years, is that why exactly this event had happened.
There are various interpretations on the topic and Bin Laden’s speeches and fatwas explaining his reasoning of the attacks and desired implications. It seems to be so clear and rational that it raises doubts. The main idea of the current paper is not to reject the reasons why Bin Laden arranged the attacks but to describe what drove him to carry out and plan the events leading to 9/11. In other words, his motives and political situation in the Middle East are analyzed in the framework of strategic thinking and long-term implications on jihad and radical Muslim movement in general. The structure of the paper consists of outlining and description of each of the reasons Bin Laden had suggested and their fitting into general strategy of jihad. Then strategy of jihad and meaning of the 9/11 are explained in the framework of long-termed perspective. Appropriate conclusions are given in the end of the paper.
General background.
After the collapse of Soviet Union, and end of the Cold War, the stability in the Middle East was far from reality. Countries were still fighting each other as millennia ago. The most vivid example was Iraqi-Kuwait war and numerous slaughter of one Muslim people by another one.
The end of bilateral confrontation and domino effect policy had given countries of Middle East a freedom of actions and desire to claim new territories and resolve old conflicts. This was the case of the Iraq and Kuwait, and of course opposition between Israel and Muslim World in general (Jandora, 2006). Due to the changes in the system of international relations, and shifting the poles of power and control in the Middle East, interstate terrorist groups’ activity had increased (White, 2011). Particular feature of those groups was their interstate direction of actions, meaning terrorists were going anywhere, “where their Muslim comrades were suppressed by the infidels” (Payne, 2008, p. 32).
The idea was developed after Russians’ failure in Afghanistan in 1980s. The concept was that the aggression of infidels was not only to be removed from the territory of a certain state, but also was supposed to be avenged in the next actions, preferably on the territory of those infidel states (White, 2011). While, in 1980’s, Bin Laden’s idea of terrorist activity referred mainly to Russians and their problem in Chechnya, in 1990s, the situation had changed.
Since, with the collapse of Soviet Union, a green light was given for the interstate conflicts in the region, terrorist groups were about to deal on the local level, eliminating the remains of the infidels in the region and helping Muslim radicals in the nearest countries (Jandora, 2006).
The situation had changed when terrorist understood that their jihad and freedom of conduct were far from reality. This fact was conditioned by an increased attention of the international community to the Middle East and turmoil in it. Particularly, this referred to the UN involvement in Iraqi-Kuwait war and active participation of US in the actions and actual military presence of “infidels on the holly territory of Allah” and their assistance to the state of Israel (Payne, 2008). At least those were suggestions of Bin Laden and his followers. Although those might be considered the main reasons for the attacks, it is crucial to analyze each of those reasons in the global picture of jihad strategy development.
Iraq sanctions.
In Bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa, one of the reasons for the war against America was imposed economic sanctions against Iraq. The justification of this suggestion was that trade embargo imposed on the country, according to the UN resolution 687 demanding elimination of weapons of mass destructions from the territory of Iraq, was heavily influencing civil population. This resolution was conditioned by Iraqi use of chemicals against Iranian population in the past wars (Payne, 2008). Forgetting the reasons for embargo, Bin Laden was arguing that economic sanctions had hit on the civil population and that infidels should pay for that (Jandora, 2006). In this context, a clarification should be made, indeed children where dying during the years of embargo, but the whole villages were not destroyed with chemical weapons only because one state had old territorial conflicts with another one. Without international community and sanctions, weapon of mass destruction would have been used on the regular basis against civilians as it was done by Husain’s government before (White, 2011).
For a consciously thinking individual, irrespective of faith and ethnic belonging, this justification looks irrelevant and groundless, but for the blind believers of poorly educated rural origin, this justification was enough for further actions. In this context, Bin Laden was making the legend of his actions; he was creating a myth of just war. Using a well-known Muslim term of “jihad”, he was giving it a “human face” – the war for the children who died because of cruel actions of the infidels (Payne, 2008). In this context, he was developing justification and moralization of his activity, which served one single goal – attraction of more people into his activity (White, 2011).
American presence in Saudi Arabia.
This aspect might be a more substantial motivation of Bin Laden’s activity than the first one, but not in the way he had interpreted it in public. Official position of Bin Laden was that presence of American military troops in Saudi Arabia, since the Gulf War of 1991, was insulting Muslims because infidels were on the soil of the holy Muslim places of Mecca and Medina (Jandora, 2006). In order to prove this fact to be a reason for the further war against infidels, bombing of the American embassy in August 1998 corresponded to the day when American troops had entered the territory of Saudi Arabia (Payne, 2008). The symbolism of this terrorist act was speaking for itself, probably even more than it should have. From the perspective of 1998 fatwa, this justification might be logical for Bin Laden’s actions, but 9/11 attacks corresponding to the same reason seems to be rather repetition than a substantial reason (Jandora, 2006).
In the context of this motive, two aspects should be emphasized. Bin Laden was continuing development of his myth of just war against unfaithful. This time he added a new dimension for justification – secrecy of the religious places of worship. He was a good strategist and new history very well, he was appealing to the radical and narrow-minded Muslims who knew nothing but tales of the crusades and fall of the Ottoman Empire and how the West had destroyed the wealth of their ancestors (Payne, 2008). In the meanwhile, the main motive for his actions was that American presence in the region was threatening his activity, which included establishment of weapon delivery routes, drugs smuggling and spreading of his activity from the poor Muslim countries like Afghanistan to the richer ones like Saudi Arabia (White, 2011). In this context, constant presence of the Americans was slowing his organization’s development and subsequent growth of personal power.
US assistance to Israel.
If Bin Laden did not include this reason in his manifesto against the West, he would not be understood by his comrades. In fact, the existence of the Israel state was supposed to be the first reason for jihad and condemnation of all its allies. Strangely, it was not an official reason for 9/11 until Bin Laden’s “Letter to America” of 2002 (Jandora, 2006). Active American-Israel relationship is not new in the field of international and security matters, and inability of Muslim community to accept its existence and continuous conflicts is as old as Jews and Muslims themselves. If collaborating with Israel was the main reason for Bin Laden’s preparation for the 9/11, why did he mention about it post factum rather than making it public, on the first place (Payne, 2008)? Rational thinking suggests that it might have not been such a crucial reason for the activity. On the other hand, why not striking Israel, which was much closer and faster target? The reason might be that it was not the main target and putting it as one of the motives for 9/11 was just another attempt to attract wider number of followers, in this case, those Muslims, who hated Jews and Israel (Jandora, 2006). Making Israel his main alleged reason for attacks, Bin Laden was driving attention from his personality to the war of jihad itself. Thus, this reasoning again had served the purpose of mystification of the whole image of the war and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in general (White, 2011).
Israel might be seen as an obstacle for the activity of Bin Laden’s organization, but particular feature of Israel defense policy is that the main aim of the state is to keep its integrity. Subsequently, Israel might conduct have good intelligence and control events on its territory and boarders, but it would not interfere into affairs of the surrounding countries and fight their terroristic groups, unless they are in the bombing radius (White, 2011). Thus, Israel itself was not strategically a substantial threat for the terrorist activity of Al Qaeda if it did not attacked the state directly. In that case, we might have forgotten the name of the organization before the name of its leader was known to the general public. So it is most unlikely that Israel was the main reason for 9/11 attacks (Jandora, 2006).
Shame and global finances.
There is a suggestion that the main motive of Bin Laden’s activity was desire to erase the shame of how Islam was treated by Christian/Western world in the last few centuries. In this context, the war against infidels would gain traditional historical struggle between two civilizations, one of which is always prevailing over the other one and vice versa. In this context, symbolism of the chosen enemy and targets would be the most credible and self-explanatory. Since the Muslim East was at its decline in the last century, and under conditions of globalization, had lost its positions, the most vivid target for the revenge would be the strongest country which embodied globalization and economic prosperity (Jandora, 2006). In this case, the World Trade Centre and Pentagon were the symbols of country’s economic and military might, and the Capitol symbolized American democracy.
In the context of wars between civilizations, the symbolism of the targets and country were serving not a short-termed purpose of panic spreading or delivering the message that Muslim terrorism existed. The message was a proclamation of a long-termed jihad war, and this message was not much for the Western world to prepare but rather for the Muslim radicals to gather their efforts in Bin Laden’s mythical war against infidels (Payne, 2008). The problem of 9/11 is that until now there is no definite answer of what exactly drove Bin Laden into mystification of this war and development of the clash of civilizations. Religious factor and extremism are obvious answers to those questions, but the exact, logical and precise driving force remains unknown even now after his death.
In the context of the unknown force is meant a specific factor which triggered Bin Laden’s terrorist activity and unraveling of the massive war between two civilizations in entirely new dimension of the global environment. The reason for searching additional reasoning of his jihad is that Bin Laden applied so many efforts in order to create a myth of jihad and its logical reasoning for Islamic fundamentalists, that it seems to be only a screen for some more materialistic reasons of his own or the groups of people he was representing (Jandora, 2006). It is either hard to believe that people still can kill for faith or the fact that faith and religion were too often used as an excuse for other activities than just war, or maybe it is just my personal inability to accept a thought that terroristic act might have some justified reason except for insanity and lack of reason itself. In any case, I think that the true driving force for Bin Laden’s activity and 9/11 will be better understood in the next years, when we shall see what is going to be of Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran and international terrorism in general.
References
Jandora, J.W. (2006). Osama Bin Laden’s Global Jihad: Myth and Movement. Military
Review, 86(6), 41-52.
Payne, J.L. (2008). What Do the Terrorists Want? The Independent Review, 13(1), 29-38.
White, J.R. (2011). Terrorism and Homeland Security. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
