He seemed to particularly cherish the rhetoric of transformation in the Middle East enunciated by Bush and his cabinet. Their formulations about a “new” Arab world, anchored by a secular, democratic constitution in Iraq, confirmed Osama’s belief that he was engaged in an epochal conflict. The occupation of Iraq “shows that the struggle is an ideological and religious struggle, and that the clash is a clash of civilizations,” he wrote in May 2004. “They are keen to destroy the Islamic identity in the entire Islamic world.”13
He mocked his Western adversaries for misunderstanding him as a premodern fanatic, a bearded loner in a faraway cave; he saw himself, instead, as a master of global technology and change. Indeed, after 2001, encouraged by Bin Laden’s embrace of digital technology, Al Qaeda—now an organization, a movement, and a franchised brand—rapidly adapted itself to the loss of physical sanctuary in Afghanistan by making greater use of the Internet for training, tactical communication, and preaching. When American officials suggested that some of Osama’s self-produced videos might contain secret codes to trigger terrorist attacks by sleeper cells, Bin Laden reacted to these fears with contempt. “The Americans have made laughable claims,” he said. “They said that there are hidden messages intended for terrorists in Bin Laden’s statements. It is as if we are living in a time of carrier pigeons, without the existence of telephones, without travelers, without the Internet, without regular mail, without faxes, without e-mail. This is just farcical; words that belittle people’s intellects.”14
One of his most remarkable essays, published as preparations for the invasion of Iraq were under way, presented a list of grievances—numbered and subnumbered into categories—that described the fullness of his opposition to the United States, its foreign policies, and its national values. The essay suggested that Osama had been perusing American news magazines during the long hours of his exile and had grown frustrated by the typical analysis he read of his motivations. “Some American writers have published articles under the title ‘On what basis are we fighting?’…Here we wanted to outline the truth.” He posed two essential questions: “Why are we fighting and opposing you?” and “What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?”15
The answer to the first question, he wrote, “is very simple: 1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.” He listed the venues where he perceived these attacks: Palestine, Somalia, Chechnya, Kashmir, Lebanon. “You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of your international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.”
As to the second question, his essential war aims, “The first thing we are calling you to is Islam.” Americans should convert to the “seal of all previous religions” in order to rescue themselves from a profound state of debauchery:
We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honor and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury…You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider these acts to be pillars of personal freedom…Who can forget your President Clinton’s immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he “made a mistake,” after which everything passed with no punishment…You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools, calling upon customers to purchase them…You then rant that you support the liberation of women.16
The more idle time Osama spent as a fugitive, the more hours he watched satellite television or perused Web sites for news of the world outside, the more he seemed to internalize and synthesize, in a characteristic fashion, diverse strands of anti-American grievance, whether they had originated with the European left, the Christian right, or the anti-globalization movement. He valued rhetorical effect over consistency of argument. His lines of poetry might be labored and archaic, but from time to time, he could turn a memorable sentence. Describing his impervious defiance in the name of Islam, he wrote: “The swimmer in the sea does not fear rain.”17 When he was not elegant, he was at least clear: “The freedom and democracy that you call for is for yourselves and for the white race only,” he wrote. “As for the rest of the world, you impose upon it your monstrous, destructive policies and governments, which you call ‘friends of America.’”18
He often blended these secular-tinted criticisms of the United States with the millenarian and anti-Semitic creeds that had long been at the heart of his outlook. Throughout his essays and recordings, like many Arabians, Osama presumed the power and relentlessness of Zionist and Jewish conspiracies.
“America didn’t start by taking my money and didn’t hurt me personally at all,” he conceded, “but it made claims about me as a result of our incitement against the Jews and the Americans…The government will take the American people and the West in general into a choking life, into an unsupportable hell, because of the fact that it has very strong ties with and are under the payroll of the Zionist lobby.” He described Jews in dehumanizing terms, “the idiots of the age,” who, when confronted by righteous Palestinian youth, “have become like agitated wild asses fleeing from a lion.”19
He rejected the borders of many nation-states as illegitimate lines drawn by pagan colonialists, yet he retained an emotional identification with the particular country of his youth—no longer as a “Saudi,” a word that honored the hated Al-Saud family, but rather as a “Hejazi,” a son of the land of Mecca and Medina. “I miss my country greatly, and have long been absent from it; but this is easy to endure because it is for the sake of God,” he wrote in late 2004. “Love for the Hejaz is deep in my heart, but its rulers are wolves.”20
By now he forswore almost all his earlier sympathy for Crown Prince Abdullah, soon to become king, although he suggested that Abdullah was a victim, to some extent, of American blackmail. Many had believed, Osama wrote, “that when Prince Abdullah…took over management of the country, he would save it from the mires of religious disobedience, and administrative, financial and media corruption…and that he would save it from subservience to America. But although people were expecting good to come from him, he brought them evil.”21
As yet more months passed and he still remained at large, and as Al Qaeda steadily revitalized itself and supported prominent attacks in London and elsewhere, Osama expressed open pride in what he had achieved since 2001. He had long thought of himself not as the general of an Islamic army or the self-anointed ruler of a prospective caliphate, but as the vanguard of a much broader and looser Islamic political resistance, in which his own band of violent operators would play no more than a galvanizing role. The September 11 attacks, he now concluded, had served to “demonstrate the enormous hostility that the Crusaders feel towards us” and had “revealed the American wolf in its true ugliness.”22
For the future, he promised a patient, long-term guerrilla strategy in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, punctuated by occasional “raids,” or terrorism, on Western territory: “The balance of terror has evened out.” He wanted to “underline the importance of dragging the enemy forces into a protracted, exhausting, close combat, making the most of camouflaged defense positions…Further, we emphasize the importance of martyrdom operations which have inflicted unprecedented harm on America and Israel, thanks to God Almighty.” He retained a considerable interest in nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, which he had once referred to as “war winners.”23