With the bravado and swagger of a bully, President Bush had landed on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. Behind him hung a large sign: “Mission Accomplished.” It was almost as if the media frenzy had been staged. From Pakistan, bin Laden and Sharafan watched all that transpired on CNN.
Sharafan was angry but bin Laden snickered at Bush’s image saying, “You have never accomplished any mission.”
To shouts and cheers the president swaggered up. Smiling out of the side of his mouth he addressed the media and said, “Major combat in Iraq is over. The war has ended.”
Again bin Laden smiled. “The war has only just begun.”
Days later President Bush again was seen on CNN. “The world will see that we are rid of an evil dictator and the people of Iraq are better off. We have given them freedom. Because of our actions, Saddam Hussein’s torture chambers are closed.”
Even though President Bush had tried to convince the world Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, he failed to show proof to back up his accusations. The American president tried to change his stories, and immediately threatened Iran, Syria, and Korea. He called those countries evil in an effort to take the heat off his unwarranted actions. While never doing anything to Israel, he demanded sanctions against the countries he called the Axis of Evil. Rumsfeld also continued his arrogant, condescending ways toward the Iraqi people. While he said Iraq had been given a democracy, they had instead been given chaos. While American troops held all the black gold, they allowed the destruction of ancient artifacts of antiquity. Banks were stripped and laid barren. The economy collapsed and it became impossible for the Iraqi people to rebuild on a foundation of a new democracy when all they had been given was chaos.
When Rumsfeld was asked how America planned to help Iraq, he came back with the snide response, “This is a war. Iraq will have to deal with chaos.” And with those words and inaction the tide turned and the Iraqi people slowly began to despise and hate Americans. To the immense satisfaction of Sharafan and bin Laden, the world also started to fear and loathe the United States.
Sharafan laughed and said to bin Laden, “The Americans repeat history.”
“How so?” bin Laden asked.
“Memories are short,” he said. “When the United States won its independence from England in 1776, the British cried foul because when they marched in with their bright red uniforms, the Americans would not come out to meet them and be killed. Instead the Americans fought like guerrillas and shot them from the cover of the forest. The British complained the Americans did not wear uniforms and they could not tell the enemy from those true to the crown. The British complained that the Americans did not fight war with the code of ethics and honor that all countries used to fight war. Now the Americans make the same complaints.”
“So what is the point?”
“That war marked the beginning of the end for the British Empire. So too America’s Operation Iraqi Freedom marks the beginning of the end for the United States.”
Bin Laden smiled and nodded his head. “If only Hussein had listened to us.”
“Yes, just a little military planning would have dealt a harsh blow to the Americans,” Sharafan noted. He smiled broadly and looked bin Laden in the eye. “Now his defeat will mean our victory. While the United States and its former allies bicker over the spoils of war, we become more united.” Suddenly, Sharafan’s face reflected a deep concern even bin Laden noticed.
“Something troubles you?” bin Laden asked.
“While we plan to destroy America, your agents make lucrative contracts with American companies. I don’t understand.”
For one of the few times those near bin Laden could remember, he not only smiled, but he also laughed. “Not all things are as they appear. Yes I make contracts with American engineering and computer companies. Greedy executives line their pockets with American dollars that one day will be worthless. Each time Fluor, Halliburton, Brown and Root, and Kellogg send us jobs to engineer, we put another nail in their coffin. Even as the president gives the military contracts to Halliburton, the same company is sending jobs to India and the Philippines, taking jobs away from Americans. And those companies we control indirectly. Each time they take away an American job, we put to work at least ten men with ties to us.”
Now, Sharafan understood bin Laden’s plans even better. He smiled. “The American companies have laid off thousands.”
“And that means tens of thousands of our people are working and planning for the future. A future that will bring an end to America.” This time bin Laden laughed silently. “Even as President Bush and other infidels like Rumsfeld condemn Iran for harboring Al Qaeda, their own American companies hire us by the thousands and feed us as we prepare to destroy them. Only recently Bill Dudley, the CEO of Bechtel, said he was moving work from London and Houston to a New Delhi office in India.”
“Ahhh,” smiled Sharafan. “More for us.”
“Correct. We could never accomplish what we have without the aid of America’s politicians and CEOs. What they cannot see is that in ten to twenty years there will be no more Americans that can do engineering or program computers, and then they will need us like they need our oil.”
Sharafan nodded then asked, “But why help computer companies like Microsoft with programming? You only line the pockets of their billionaires with even more money.”
Again, bin Laden managed a smile. “Already, American software companies like Microsoft and Texas Instruments spend more than ten billion dollars making software in India. We have a hand in more than half of that.” Bin Laden rubbed his chin and smiled. “If you have watched the technical side of America, you would see greed is also there. IBM, Silicon Laboratories, and Intel have their chips made in India where we can control what we send them. They too have become arrogant and passive and do not check their software and chips because it would be too expensive.
Even Microsoft’s Bill Gates had his picture in the newspapers with India’s Narayana Moorthy as he gave billions of dollars of work to Infosys in Bangalore, India.” Bin Laden laughed out loud. “Hence the problems they currently have, and the ones they will have.”
“I must say I do not understand.”
“We do programming for many of the computer companies because we are so cheap. But at the same time we are doing something else.”
“What?”
Waving his hand in the air confidently, bin Laden said, “You might say we are decorating these programs.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Oh, but it does. You see, we add a few marks of our own that go undetected. A virus, so to speak. One that will sleep until we tell it to awake. And when we wake it the systems will collapse and become totally inoperable.”
“Ahhh,” mumbled Sharafan with a deep understanding.
Bin Laden grunted. “We have already tested it on Microsoft and were able to shut them down for a few days. Now we design others. Already our sleeping virus has been planted in ten major computer companies that have sold those programs to thousands of other American companies that depend on the software for their daily operation. The power systems of America will collapse. Anyone who has a Windows program on their computer will no longer be able to use their computers or access the Internet.” Bin Laden actually laughed. “What good is a gun without bullets? When America’s computers crash they will be unable to continue. You will find that without their computers, Americans are helpless.”