BIN LADEN'S PLAN
How Bush Is Bin Laden's MVP
© 2001-2004 David Malone
All Rights Reserved
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BIN LADEN'S PLAN
Master Plan: To Destroy America and Glorify Bin Laden
What is Bin Laden's master plan that involves the election of Bush to the presidency? The banner heads of the fundamentalist Islamic revolution and his own public rhetoric and actions make it clear Bin Laden intends to totally destroy the United States and Israel, as surely as Mein Kampf and the Nazi revolution foretold Hitler's destructive designs. The weapon of mass destruction best designed for targeted total destruction is the nuclear bomb, the WMD Al Qaeda has most urgently sought. Based on this evidence alone, it is reasonable to conclude that Bin Laden intends to escalate the post-9/11 global conflict into a nuclear war that destroys America.
Al Qaeda's public presentation as a messianic organization suggests that the goal of destroying America is conjoined with the goal of Bin Laden's eternal glorification as the Messiah of the Apocalypse. Al Qaeda will not destroy America unless this action glorifies Bin Laden in world opinion. In order to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat Bin Laden has instigated Bush into incriminating America as the great criminal party of the current world war. While incriminating America serves to assist the movement to destroy America, America's vilification more importantly serves to glorify Al Qaeda in its war effort. Only if America were first demonized in world opinion as a "Great Satan" empire could Bin Laden be accepted as the glorified savior of humanity upon destroying America. Victory in a public relations war is the necessary pretext for Al Qaeda's messianic nuclear war against America.
Bin Laden's egocentric plan of using the destruction of America to present himself as the savior of humanity consists of two phases. The ongoing post-9/11 war if the first phase, in which Al Qaeda engages in a public relations conflict to win over world public opinion in its war against the United States. Al Qaeda's attacks are not intended to degrade the United States militarily but rather to goad the United States into internationally illegitimate military invasions that vilify America and glorify Al Qaeda. When Al Qaeda has succeeded in fostering the global community's desire to see it destroy America, the appropriate climate for its nuclear war will have been prepared. This nuclear war will be the second phase, guided by the unequivocal aim of destroying America completely.
Bin Laden's War
Al Qaeda: The Means to America's Destruction
Al Qaeda's identity as a global invisible empire fueled by widespread support equates to an immense military advantage over any nation. Al Qaeda is so powerful it can afford to restrain its guerilla bombing campaign to a minimum level in the midst of the conventional onslaught of the American military colossus. Al Qaeda is a radically new war machine of unmatched power that has enabled Bin Laden to proceed with the bold enactment of his world war, much as the German blitzkrieg war machine enabled Hitler's world war. The past decade has been a bold testament to Al Qaeda's military might, in which time Al Qaeda continuously attacked America and only got stronger. From the 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center and American troops in Somalia, to the 1995 and 1996 bombings of American military personnel in Saudi Arabia, to the 1998 twin African embassy bombings, to the 2000 USS Cole bombing to the 9/11 bombings, Al Qaeda has waged a military campaign against America with unprecedented success. Bin Laden has created a nuclear Frankenstein of a war machine, a global stateless terrorist empire based on a hidden guerilla army armed with a nuclear arsenal. The Al Qaeda army enjoys both global reach and global invisibility, an unprecedented achievement for a military power. Using unconventional attacks Al Qaeda could destroy America entirely, all the while remaining invulnerable to counterattack.
The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction that governed the nuclear peace of the Cold War has been subverted by the stateless army of Al Qaeda. Since Al Qaeda lost its state sponsorship when the Taliban was removed from power, the terrorist empire has been invulnerable to a nuclear counter-attack. Revealingly, the fact that the American invasion of Afghanistan was the predictable result of the 9/11 attacks indicates that Bin Laden wanted to instigate this invasion, an assertion supported by The 9/11 Commission Report. A nuclear armed Al Qaeda without state sponsorship has an undeniable strategic nuclear advantage over any nation, including the United States. Traditionally, for an empire to launch a nuclear attack on a nuclear power was tantamount to suicide because the nuclear retaliation would destroy the aggressor empire, be it a state or some other empire with a physical infrastructure. As a stateless organization without a physical infrastructure Al Qaeda cannot be retaliated against in kind and so avoids being bound by the traditional deterrent from waging nuclear war. Al Qaeda cannot be targeted with nuclear weapons because it has neither a state-sponsored constituency nor a visible army. Al Qaeda's financial, communications and military empire is covertly blended throughout the populations of the world, so that the only way they could be conceivably destroyed with weapons of mass destruction is if the whole world was destroyed. Al Qaeda's invisibility further adds to the difficulty of deterring this terrorist empire in a nuclear war because it has the guerilla's advantage of surprise attacks, an unparalleled speed and secrecy that thoroughly outmatches America's conventional military. As its forerunners displayed in the Afghan-Soviet War, Al Qaeda today demonstrates the inferiority of a superpower's state-based military when matched against a globally entrenched, stateless guerrilla army that is fueled by widespread global support.
All of Al Qaeda's capabilities as a war machine would be ineffective if not for an unprecedented feature, soldiers with the will and desire to kill untold millions in a nuclear war. Bin Laden's soldiers are thoroughly indoctrinated religious zealots who actually wish to die in this war they believe to be the war of the apocalypse, a character trait that greatly adds to Al Qaeda's military strength. Al Qaeda's dictatorial command structure guides its excessively zealous operatives towards a coherent grand strategy, and allows for a rapid response to changing events. Unlike the traditional model of a stateless terrorist empire, Al Qaeda cells do not operate independently of Al Qaeda leadership because they must have a unified direction to achieve Bin Laden's complex strategy. Leading an umbrella terrorist organization, Al Qaeda's central command carefully wages its world war through its affiliates scattered throughout the world. Grand strategy aside, it is unlikely a megalomaniac like Bin Laden would trust the crucial decisions governing the fate of his empire to his extremely zealous terrorist operatives. Were that the case, America would most likely have been struck by numerous small terrorist attacks since the inception of the 9/11 war. Instead, Al Qaeda has pursued a coherent terrorist campaign based on central decision-making. As has been confirmed by American intelligence's decade-long investigation of Al Qaeda, all of its terrorist attacks up through 9/11 were "micro-masterminded" by Bin Laden. In order to successfully continue Bin Laden's war effort Al Qaeda's leadership must have executive control of all Al Qaeda attacks. The dominant power of Bin Laden's fully-featured war machine in today's world was vividly demonstrated on 9/11 when Al Qaeda used unconventional weapons to destroy the symbolic power base for America's economic might. As a super-powerful invisible empire with the full intention to start a nuclear war and with no inhibition about it, Al Qaeda arguably poses a far greater military threat to the United States than any group of nations.
Unlike a state-based nuclear power, Al Qaeda is able to survive without state sponsorship because of the strength of its ideological movement. Instead of funding from a state Al Qaeda relies on independent sources of funding and recruitment that will support Al Qaeda based on its ideological appeal, that is, its success in a public relations war. Having replaced the state with a non-corporeal ideological movement as the base for his empire, Bin Laden has made Al Qaeda the world's most invulnerable empire. The Al Qaeda movement has no visible infrastructure, no state-sponsored constituency, a recruitment base spread throughout the world inside nations that are not state-sponsors of Al Qaeda, and a continuous supply of covert funding to finance its hidden army globally. As colossal a threat as Al Qaeda poses today, during times of global peace it is very vulnerable to degradation because Al Qaeda does not have the ideological support arising from a war's climate of indignation. Without another abominable menace fomenting global instability world opinion views the terrorist organization Al Qaeda as merely a problem and not a solution. This leaves Al Qaeda without the support it needs to carry out its apocalyptic designs. However, during times of sustained United States military aggression in Muslim lands, global outrage at the United States regenerates Al Qaeda in terms of new operatives and new funds, and so negates the effect of any captures or frozen assets. In fact, in a climate of holy war Al Qaeda will only grow stronger in its military capacity and global support, a fact that the Bush Administration's hawkish policy has failed to address. The United States, on the other hand, by maintaining the holy war with military aggression weakens her defensive military capacity and global support, eroding the security of her very vulnerable nation. In Bush's War On Terror, with every bullet fired and every bomb dropped over the vociferous objections of the world community the United States gradually loses its position as the world's superpower and transfers it to Al Qaeda. Considering the current global situation Al Qaeda could very well soon be the strongest empire in the world, having both a strategic nuclear advantage and overwhelming global support in a war against the United States. While Al Qaeda is more powerful militarily than America, they have an Achilles heal: their overriding ambition to portray a messianic organization. As indicated by the fact that they have chosen not to nuke America since acquiring a nuclear arsenal before 9/11, Al Qaeda will only attack America with nuclear weapons if world opinion views this action to be that of a messianic organization destroying the Great Satan. By defeating Al Qaeda in a public relations war, America can both prevent Al Qaeda from launching its nuclear arsenal and seriously degrade its capability to sustain a terrorist empire.
America's Reputation
Since his first messianic "religious" edict in 1996, Bin Laden has demonstrated that America's reputation is the critical factor in his plan to destroy America and portray the Messiah. While traditionally terrorists do try to justify their attacks as a legitimate response to tyranny and inequity, more than any other terrorist in history Bin Laden has strived to justify his attacks to the world, particularly those against his archenemy America. Bin Laden's public relations goal is enormously ambitious, considering America's legacy as the benefactor of civilization that saved the world from the Nazis and the Soviet Union and that enriched the world with the modern technological revolution. Nevertheless, America's reprehensible record of supporting Middle Eastern tyrants to acquire oil supplies has offered Bin Laden a staging point for achieving his ambitious goal. All of his numerous media releases attempt to portray his attacks as legitimate responses to American crimes against Muslims.
Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple: (1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.
In this November 2002 media release, Al Qaeda reiterates Bin Laden's indictment of America and continues on to list the ongoing instances of America attacking Muslims.
As observed in these Al Qaeda media releases, grievances against ongoing American aggression are far more powerful tools for Al Qaeda than grievances over past aggressions. More persuasively than indirect American aggression, such as past American support for repressive and imperialistic regimes in the Middle East, direct American aggression in Muslim lands serves Bin Laden's purpose of justifying his war to the world. During ongoing American aggression against a Muslim nation, an Al Qaeda attack more clearly appears to have the added dimension of serving a preventative purpose in addition to its penal purpose. The 9/11 Commission Report states that Al Qaeda's public image was of utmost importance to Bin Laden, particularly the public appearance of Al Qaeda fighting to stop ongoing Muslim suffering from American aggression. In order for Bin Laden to appear justified in world opinion Al Qaeda is waiting for American aggression to reach a certain level before truly beginning his military campaign against America. This assertion is supported by The 9/11 Commission Report statement that Bin Laden's motive for the Cole bombing was to provoke a massive American retaliation, which he then attempted to provoke again with the outrageous 9/11 attacks. By continually expanding the 9/11 retaliation into outlandish venues the Bush Administration has increasingly provided Bin Laden with the justification that is necessary for Al Qaeda to begin his nuclear war versus America. Al Qaeda's propaganda machine, an organ that has exceeded the exploits of the Nazi propaganda machine, has translated much of the global outrage at Bush's hawkish foreign policy into support for Al Qaeda.
In his rhetoric Bin Laden often likens his war against an America-Israeli military occupation of the Middle East to the Muslim war against the Christian Crusaders of the Middle Ages. Harkening to one of the more universally condemned abominations in human history, Bin Laden effectively employs the emotionally vivid imagery of the notoriously barbarous invasion of the Muslim Middle East by the Christian West. Led by an evangelical Christian American president whose administration consists prominently of representatives of Israeli imperialism and Big Oil, such as Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz and Vice President Cheney, Bush's "crusade" in the Middle East strikingly resembles the Christian Crusades for holy land and Middle Eastern treasures. Stoking hatred of America's ongoing military aggression through historical comparison, Bin Laden sets alight the simmering Muslim rage at 1,400 years of Western domination of the world. By fanning the flames of anti-Americanism, Bin Laden neutralizes the revulsion Muslims feel at his terrorist attacks and even stirs feelings of righteous enjoyment when America is attacked, as indicated by the increasing support for Al Qaeda in the Muslim world. Furthermore, Bin Laden's comparison of America's war in the Middle East to the Crusades implies that history will repeat itself and the Muslim armies will win the war. The dominant effect Bush's invasion of the Middle East had on Bin Laden's public relations war was to confirm Bin Laden's indictment of America as a Christian Crusader empire, casting America's fate in a grim light.
Bin Laden's war has targeted the foundation of American global power, America's reputation. As was exemplified in the Cold War, a world war is won by the nation that succeeds in the battle for the world's hearts and minds. America's victory over the USSR in the ideological battle fifteen years ago is the precedent that must be observed in order to defeat Al Qaeda. While America's righteous appearance was tempered by a host of infamous crimes, compared to her Cold War nemesis America's reputation was positive. America's true power base is the soft power of America's friendly global relations, a power derived from America's upstanding image as the defender of democracy and caretaker of humanity's impoverished masses. The superpower's world domination, including America's hogging of the earth's resources and her global policing of civilization, are subject to the consent of world opinion. If America's reputation plummeted like that of the Soviet Union towards the end of the Cold War, the global coalition against America would be as unstoppable as the global coalition that defeated the USSR. Bin Laden's campaign to demonize America has set the stage for the second of the Cold War superpowers to be dethroned from global domination.
As much as Bush's military occupation of the Middle East has demonized America in the prelude to Bin Laden's nuclear war, America by no means began the conflict against Al Qaeda with an unblemished reputation. In the context of the nuclear age, America's infamous reputation as the creator and greatest distributor of nuclear weapons is compounded by America's age-old threat to destroy all life on earth in a global nuclear war. America's battle for its reputation is further handicapped by the villainous legacy of modern American imperialism in the Middle East, especially America's support of the greatest criminals of the Middle East, including Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the repressive Shah of Iran, Bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the House of Saud, and Israel in the Palestinian territories and beyond. America's identity as a nation that has risen to world domination by committing horrendous crimes presents Bin Laden with a scapegoat for his nuclear war. Furthermore, by citing these American crimes as justification for his nefarious war Bin Laden makes America reluctant to address these legitimate global grievances against America for fear of legitimizing Bin Laden's wicked attacks. America's failure to address these grievances, let alone the Bush Administration's compounding of the grievances with illegal actions such as the invasion of Iraq, allows Bin Laden to fuel his movement with the resulting global indignation. From a historical perspective America's need to engender friendly relations with the world community is clear from its huge deficit, a need enhanced by the threat of Al Qaeda. In order to survive, America needs to emphasize to the world its legacy as a benefactor of civilization, instead of the legacy of global tyranny that Bush's foreign policy has brought to the forefront of the public relations war. Unfortunately, instead of a reverse in the decay of America's reputation in the Middle East, the Bush Administration has hastened the decay as well as Bin Laden's day of judgment on America.
Islam
A fundamental component of Bin Laden's messianic pr war against America is his theology. Bin Laden uses his Arab Fundamentalist Islamic theology as the enlightened message in his portrayal of the Messiah, the preeminent human of global myth who destroys Satan and delivers the enlightened message that ushers humanity into the Promised Land. While Bin Laden is courting the entire world's opinion in his plan for Messiah pretension, he is especially attempting to win over Muslim opinion so that Islam may serve as his theological vehicle. Bin Laden has largely accomplished this feat by presenting himself as the defender and unifier of Islam.
As much as his notorious attacks against America have made him appear to Muslims as the defender of Islam, Bin Laden's war has also united the factions of Islam by a common anti-Americanism. Bin Laden explained his goal of Islamic unity in his 1996 interview with The Call of Islam, a militant Islamic magazine based in Australia.
It is crucial for us to be patient and to cooperate in righteousness and piety and to raise awareness of the fact that the highest priority, after faith, is to repel the aggressive enemy that corrupts the religion and the world. Nothing deserves a higher priority, after faith, as the religious scholars have declared. It is crucial to overlook many of the issues of bickering to unite our ranks so that we can repel the greater Kufr (America)(28).
In addition to his rhetoric, Bin Laden's attacks have been orchestrated to portray Al Qaeda as the unifier of Islam. In his Saudi Arabia campaign Bin Laden has taken care to attack only Western targets and avoid instigating a civil war, choosing not to bomb the very vulnerable oil wells or any Saudi government targets (with the exception of the 2004 attack on Saudi security forces, a group widely viewed in the Muslim world as an extension of the American War on Terror in Saudi Arabia). In its global campaign, excluding occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, Al Qaeda has only attacked Western targets located mostly inside Muslim nations. By focusing his attacks on Western targets in Muslim nations Bin Laden has confined his war to the Western presence inside Islamic lands, portraying the image globally of being the righteous defender of Islam who battles the satanic instigator of the world war. In those American-occupied nations where Bin Laden attempts to foment civil war to instigate further American military responses, he disguises Al Qaeda's complicity in the crimes, particularly those against Muslims. In Iraq Bin Laden has portrayed the Zarqawi network, responsible for killing hundreds of Iraqis in a campaign to foment civil war, as independent of Al Qaeda control, thus inflaming Bin Laden's war without publicly incriminating Al Qaeda as the cause of the world war. Skillfully avoiding Muslim condemnation for his nefarious acts against Muslims, Bin Laden has largely succeeded in uniting Islam under his leadership in a war against America, the necessary precursor to Al Qaeda's nuclear war.
Despite Bin Laden's special attention to Muslim opinion he clearly has no genuine concern for the well-being of his people, rather Islam and its people are his tools in a megalomaniac quest to portray the Messiah. Bin Laden has started a world war that threatens to kill millions and millions of Muslims, and billions around the world, all for the sake of his own glorification in world opinion. While Bin Laden most actively courts Muslim public opinion, favorable global public opinion is just as necessary for Bin Laden to proceed with his abominable plan. Bin Laden must win over the opinions of all peoples, not just Muslims, in order to portray the Messiah who converts humanity en masse to his theology. Bin Laden has thus far successfully waged the battle for the hearts and minds of the world by transferring war guilt for the war he started onto America, successfully portraying Al Qaeda as a righteous messianic movement battling a satanic world dominating empire.
Europe
While Bin Laden is most obviously striving to win over Muslim opinion in his war against Western civilization, he is also attempting to win the favorable opinion of the rest of the world, including Europe. Bin Laden's ultimate plan for world domination by nuclear terrorism only requires the destruction of one nation to succeed, the world's most powerful nation. The other part of Bin Laden's plan, Messiah pretension, mandates that Al Qaeda limit its body count in order to succeed in wooing world opinion. Accordingly Al Qaeda will confine the scope of its military campaign, targeting only America for definitive destruction and sparing (on a good will basis) the rest of civilization. After destroying America, Al Qaeda will complete Bin Laden's plan for world domination by forcefully submitting the rest of the world to his will. A likely leader of the resistance to Bin Laden's rule will be Europe, the remaining bastion of Western civilization. Bin Laden's interest in Europe today is to prepare European public opinion for his rule tomorrow.
Al Qaeda's history of attacks in Europe confirm Bin Laden's intention is not to destroy Europe, but rather to manipulate European public opinion into resignation to Al Qaeda's world domination. This manipulation has artfully employed a psychological assault consisting of both terror and justification. The barrage of Al Qaeda threats against Europe for its overt or tacit support of America's war since the 9/11 attacks have recently culminated in Al Qaeda's first and only attack inside Europe. The 2004 Madrid bombings were quickly followed by an Al Qaeda media release justifying the attacks, based on an association of Spain to the litany of grievances against America that are widely shared by the world community. By justifying its reign of terror to the world, even to those people it publicly targets, Al Qaeda nurtures the resignation of potential adversaries and encourages supporters.
Europe in particular has been marked by a modern tradition of resignation to appeasing terrorists. As a result, since the 1970s Europe has been a haven for international terrorism.
Europe, fearful of potential reprisals, seemed more inclined to provide a safe haven for international terrorists rather than to seek their apprehension . . . During the 1970 and 1980s . . . it was not unusual for European governments to cut secret deals with terrorists. In exchange for the terrorists agreement not to strike within these countries' borders or target their citizens, European authorities often turned a blind eye to activities that would otherwise have invited arrest and imprisonment(29).
The traditional European appeasement to terrorism offers Al Qaeda the means to fracture Europe's alliance with America and submit Europe to Al Qaeda's will.
Bin Laden's actions to date indicate he plans to use Europe's tradition of appeasement to allow his empire to grow and eventually to force Europe into total submission to Al Qaeda. In 1994 Bin Laden took advantage of the safe haven offered to terrorists by Europe when he established the headquarters for his international terrorist empire in London, England(30). Seven years later Al Qaeda used the infamous terrorist cell based in Hamburg, Germany to execute the 9/11 attacks. In the eleven years of its campaign of terrorist attacks, Al Qaeda did not once attack Europe until March 2004. The Madrid train bombings were executed on the eve of the Spanish national elections, and were widely blamed for the change in administration that established a new Spanish government with a mandate of withdrawing Spanish forces from Iraq. Al Qaeda media releases prior to and following the attack clarified that the bombings were in retaliation for Spanish support of the American occupation of Iraq, thereby portraying the Spanish March 2004 election as a European nation fearfully bowing to Al Qaeda's will. Ever conscious of its public relations war, Al Qaeda waited until European nations became increasingly vilified in global opinion for either overtly supporting the illegal invasion of Iraq or simply continuing to do business with America afterwards. At this point Al Qaeda began unleashing its war of catastrophic terrorist attacks on the continent where Western civilization began.
Despite the beginning of an Al Qaeda campaign of terrorist attacks against Europe, Al Qaeda's actions to date indicate its purpose for Europe is domination, not destruction. Al Qaeda's manipulation of European public opinion through a campaign of terror and propaganda has catalyzed the facture of Europe's alliance with America and sustained the tradition of European acquiescence to terrorism in the onset of an age of European appeasement to Al Qaeda. These events have been greatly facilitated by the Bush Administration's emphasis on a hawkish assault on the Middle East at the expense of America's reputation abroad. Most prominently exemplified by the illegal and unilateral invasion of Iraq, Bush's leadership has largely confirmed Bin Laden's indictment of America in European opinion. Beyond detracting from European support for America, the invasion of Iraq has incriminated Europe both for its past support for and for its current resignation to a War on Terror that has become demonized in world opinion.
The 9/11 War
The overriding purpose of the 9/11 attacks, as revealed by Bush's hawkish predisposition and Bin Laden's geopolitical acumen, was to instigate Bush into an outlandish military crusade that demonized America and glorified Al Qaeda in world opinion. 9/11 was intended to instigate Bush to commit the very crime for which Bin Laden planned finally to indict America. While the 9/11 attacks greatly incriminated Al Qaeda for blame for the war, the attacks were necessary to set in motion the Bush team's PNAC plan for American military world domination. The unprecedented attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the power base of America's economic and military strength, also set in motion Al Qaeda's glorification by portraying the group as the base of resistance to America's world domination by economic and military coercion. Bin Laden's villainous 9/11 attacks represented a retroactive rallying call to Muslims to unite under Al Qaeda to battle a future joint American-Israeli occupation of the Middle East.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 Bin Laden launched his new public relations campaign by denying responsibility for the 9/11 attacks(31). Bin Laden's initial denial set the stage for America's vilification and Al Qaeda's glorification in world opinion. By raising the question of his guilt for 9/11 in world opinion Bin Laden helped to foster the now widespread myth that the 9/11 attacks were really perpetrated by the CIA and Israeli intelligence as a pretext for an American invasion of the Middle East. Additionally Bin Laden's denial prevented Bush from proceeding with an immediate United Nations invasion of Afghanistan coordinated through the Security Council, instigating a president with a widely known predisposition to circumventing the United Nations to invade Afghanistan without United Nations approval (see "Cole Bombing: On National Defense: Bush" for evidence of this predisposition). Bin Laden's denial further instigated Bush into launching an internationally illegal war by providing Bush with a better opportunity to insinuate others beyond Al Qaeda were to blame for the 9/11 attacks, offering the Bush Administration the critical pretext it was waiting for to launch an invasion of the Middle East. The result of Bin Laden's cunning ploy and Bush's diplomatic ineptitude was the widespread doubt about the legitimacy of the invasion of the poorest Arab nation by the world's richest nation. By diminishing America's prestigious reputation in world opinion and raising early doubts about his own guilt for 9/11, Bin Laden's denial began to portray a righteous messianic group battling an empire.
Consistent with Bin Laden's campaign to woo world opinion Al Qaeda has chosen not to attack America once since jump-starting Bush's invasion of the Middle East on 9/11. Even the most optimistic observers accept that Al Qaeda has hidden sleeper cells inside America and that American homeland security, particularly border patrol, is grossly under funded. Despite Al Qaeda's ability to easily attack America they have chosen not to execute one single attack, let alone a wave of attacks. This strategy of restrained aggression is consistent with a public relations campaign and inconsistent with a military campaign.
In concert with Al Qaeda's strategy of not attacking America, the global terrorist bombing campaign Al Qaeda has waged since the 9/11 attacks has been focused on the goal of a public relations victory over America. Consistently portraying the story of a righteous messianic group battling an evil empire's global economic and military occupation, Al Qaeda has confined its overt bombing campaign mostly to Western targets in Muslim nations, particularly Muslim nations under American occupation. Waging this confined bombing campaign in the midst of Bush's military crusade in the Middle East has allowed Al Qaeda to transfer war guilt to America, as world opinion deems it more justifiable and less provocative to attack an occupying force (be it military or civilian) inside a nation than to attack a sovereign nation itself.
In particular Al Qaeda has displayed the penchant for timing its global bombing campaigns against Western occupation to coincide with the conclusion of an American invasion of a sovereign Muslim nation, a portrayal that emphasizes America's guilt in the war. After 9/11 Al Qaeda did not claim responsibility for a single terrorist attack until months after the conclusion of the American invasion of Afghanistan. The month after the American invasion of Iraq Al Qaeda launched an unprecedented wave of global attacks (in Chechnya, Casablanca, Saudi Arabia and possibly in Israel via Hamas), portraying Bin Laden as the leader of the global resistance to the Western Crusaders. Following each "retaliatory" campaign Al Qaeda has halted its attacks to allow the Bush Administration to further incriminate America in the war with escalating economic and military aggression.
Al Qaeda has furthered expedited this transfer of war guilt by not claiming responsibility for many of its bombings. Most prominently, Al Qaeda has not claimed responsibility for its heinous attacks against Muslims, such as the current Al Qaeda effort in Iraq to foment civil war by bombing Iraqi Shiites. Although the group responsible for the majority of the Shiite bombings is Al Qaeda's main Iraq branch, the Zarqawi network, through a campaign of disinformation (including a highly suspect letter from Zarqawi to the Al Qaeda leadership) Al Qaeda has publicly portrayed Zarqawi as independent of Al Qaeda, rendering Al Qaeda largely blameless for these murders in world opinion. Al Qaeda has also not claimed responsibility for most of its attacks against non-Muslim nations, such as those against Russia and India. In fact, Al Qaeda has only claimed responsibility for two attacks on Western nations, the 9/11 attacks and the 2004 Spain Train bombings, portraying Al Qaeda not as the provocateur of war but rather as the righteous defender of the oppressed. By craftily manipulating its public image during its bombing campaign Al Qaeda has fostered a righteous reputation as the chief combatant against American imperialism. With a public campaign of bombings targeting Western imperialism Al Qaeda has largely avoided global condemnation for having instigated American aggression and even largely succeeded in portraying a messianic war to the global audience.
In addition to its direct public relations aims, Al Qaeda has launched its attacks to instigate aggression by, submission from and regime change within the major world powers. By launching attacks, such as the 9/99 Moscow apartment bombings and the 9/11 attacks, to instigate Western aggression Bin Laden catalyzes the portrayal of a modern Western crusade against Islam. In the central front of the world war today, Iraq, Al Qaeda has executed a sustained bombing campaign against the American occupation and Iraqi Shiites to instigate an increase in the American military occupation of the Middle East in a portrayal of a modern crusade. In addition to provocative attacks, in early 2004 Al Qaeda revealed an entirely different kind of attack, a bombing intended to force a nation into submitting to Al Qaeda's demands. The Madrid Train bombings were explicitly executed on the eve of the Spanish national elections to install a prime minister who would comply to Al Qaeda's demand for a complete withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq. By terrorizing Spain out of its alliance with American in Iraq Bin Laden demonstrated Al Qaeda's ability to effectively fight against Western military aggression, the very military aggression that he himself has instigated.
The Spain Train bombings were one of a few instances when Al Qaeda dramatically displayed its startling power to effect a regime change in a democracy. This amazing bombing tactic involves launching a terrorist attack on the eve of a national election, causing voter sentiment to sway towards a particular candidate. While Spain's special circumstances of assisting a widely unpopular aggressive military occupation led to the election of the pacifist candidate, these regime-change bombings usually assist the election of the hawkish candidate. As was the case with the bombing of the USS Cole three weeks before Bush's election, the instigation of the Palestinian intifada weeks before Ariel Sharon's election, the December 2003 Russian train bombings two days prior to the national parliamentary elections, and the February 2004 Moscow subway bombing weeks before the Russian presidential election, Al Qaeda has swayed the elections of hawkish Western administrations. After these Western war hawks were installed, Al Qaeda has proceeded directly to instigate these administrations to invade Muslim nations with terrorist attacks, as was the case with Bush's invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq following the 9/11 attacks, and Putin's invasion of Chechnya following the 9/99 Moscow apartment bombings. From election to declaration of war Bin Laden has assisted Western war hawks in waging a world war that appears like a modern Western crusade against Islam.
While Al Qaeda has effectively used terrorist bombings to accomplish its goal of a public relations victory over America, a more often used weapon in the public relations war is the threat of a terrorist attack. Without incurring any public relations fallout Al Qaeda successfully instigates an American military response, be it roadblocks or curfews, that demonize America in world opinion. Through a campaign consisting of a few highly selective attacks and a barrage of threats, Bin Laden portrays Al Qaeda as the underdog defender of the downtrodden against a modern Rome Pretender, setting the stage for the world to accept him as the righteous destroyer of a "Great Satan" empire.
Al Qaeda's Next Attack in America:The White House Bombing
Al Qaeda's policy of not attacking the American homeland will end when Bin Laden has positively secured a global public relations victory over America. This Al Qaeda victory would only occur after Bush's reelection, an event that would signal to the world the American public's endorsement of the Bush Administration's criminal war in Iraq and generally loathed hawkish foreign policy. The American public's incrimination for Bush's war policies is necessary for Al Qaeda to justify to the world its future attacks on America. Al Qaeda will wait until Bush's second term before unleashing its bombing campaign inside America. Furthermore, Bush's second term would likely involve an expansion of America's war to Iran, the second member of the "Axis of Evil", an unprovoked criminal invasion of a sovereign nation that would further justify to the world a sustained Al Qaeda bombing campaign within America.
Whether immediately following Bush's reelection or following Bush's preemptive invasion of Iran, Al Qaeda's next target will most likely be the White House. Al Qaeda already attempted to bomb the White House with the 9/11 attacks, in fact, Bin Laden favored this target above and beyond all other targets(31A). In addition to the direct intelligence supporting this assertion, the importance of the White House bombing to Bin Laden is further corroborated by the fact that he wanted to launch the 9/11 attacks two months prematurely in 2001 to hit the White House during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon(31B). Al Qaeda has prominently displayed the disposition to repeat attacks against targets that had previously failed, such as the first World Trade Center bombing, suggesting that Al Qaeda will attempt to rectify the failure of the fourth plane to hit the White House on 9/11. Notably, the 9/11 attacks were executed on a day when it was widely publicized that Bush was out of the White House on a publicity tour in Florida, indicating that the purpose of the White House bombing was not (and will not be) to kill Bush but rather to provoke him to launch a crusade.
Recent intelligence revelations indicate that Al Qaeda's repeat attempt to kamikaze attack the White House might be in the final stages of preparation. Since the 9/11 attacks Al Qaeda has displayed the habit of releasing media announcements around the 9/11 anniversary that trigger major Al Qaeda attacks over the course of the next couple months, as with the 2002 Al Qaeda announcement that triggered the Bali bombings and the Moscow theatre siege, and the 2003 announcement that triggered the Riyadh bombings. The release of a video-taped message by top Al Qaeda leader Zawahiri around the 9/11 anniversary in 2004 suggests that a major Al Qaeda attack is nearing fruition, quite possibly the White House bombing timed to occur right after Bush's reelection. The revelation that Al Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui intended to participate in a second wave of aerial Al Qaeda attacks inside America corroborates with intelligence that top Al Qaeda lieutenant Khalid Sheik Mohammed, 9/11 brainchild, plotted more aerial kamikaze attacks inside America, further affirming that Al Qaeda will repeat this attack on the White House(31C).
An Al Qaeda attack on the White House would be consistent with the prevailing focus of its war effort, a public relations campaign against America. Following Bush's reelection, Al Qaeda's bombing of the White House will explicitly state the cause of Al Qaeda's renewed campaign against the American homeland as being the American public's endorsement of the Bush foreign policy that has been globally condemned as criminal. On the other hand, if Al Qaeda attacked America before the 2004 Election this major public relations victory would be nullified since Bush's reelection would appear less like the American public's endorsement of the Bush foreign policy and more like America's artificial manipulation by a foreign power. This unlikely attack would only occur if Al Qaeda judged that Bush, its unwitting MVP (Most Valuable President), needed the assistance of a terrorist attack that threatened his life to rally a sympathy vote to get reelected. By targeting Bush and not any other American targets after the election, Al Qaeda will only be attacking the representation of what is widely seen as a criminal regime, largely avoiding the portrayal of Al Qaeda as a fomenter of the world war. The post-election bombing of Bush's White House will signal a momentous change in the war, the moment when the majority of the world will support Al Qaeda's targeted attack on America because of the unprecedented hatred Bush has generated towards himself. Al Qaeda will then use this dramatic shift in its standing in world opinion to go on an active offensive against America, though still with the primary goal of a total public relations victory over America in prelude to an eventual total nuclear strike.
Beyond manipulating world opinion to acquiesce to Al Qaeda's war against America, the bombing the White House will serve Bin Laden's public relations war in other ways. By being the group to attempt to dethrone Bush after his reelection Al Qaeda will reestablish itself as the leader of the global opposition to the American imperialism so vividly displayed by Bush's foreign policy. In addition to Al Qaeda's glorification, the White House bombing (secretly intended not to kill Bush) would provide Bush all the excuse he needs to pursue his predisposition to invading Iran and beyond, as certainly as the 9/11 attacks gave him the excuse he was awaiting to invade Iraq. By provoking another outlandish American retaliation in the Middle East through a limited bombing campaign, Al Qaeda will successfully provoke Bush to further demonize America in world opinion. Consistent with Al Qaeda's attempt to court global public opinion, its future bombing campaign will be waged in a restricted fashion that portrays Al Qaeda not as the aggressor but rather as the defender of the helpless victims of American aggression.
The Nuclear War
In the war against America Al Qaeda is currently playing possum, waging a very limited conventional bombing campaign while secretly possessing a nuclear arsenal that is on standby for the day Al Qaeda wins the battle for the world's hearts and minds. Al Qaeda's membership in the nuclear club is not surprising, considering the accessibility of nuclear weapons on the Russian black market, Bin Laden's connections with the Chechen and Russian mafias, the vast and varied sources of funding Bin Laden has acquired for his movement, Al Qaeda's notorious efforts to acquire nuclear weapons dating back to 1993, and the interests of the enemies of America in having Al Qaeda destroy America. The most compelling evidence of Al Qaeda's nuclear power comes from a respect for the strategic genius of a man who has been successfully bombing America since 1993, and in which time has augmented his army from a ragtag band of guerilla fighters to the most feared military force on earth. To esteem Bin Laden as a master war strategist is to accept that he understood the fundamental tenets of warfare, one of which being that the victorious strategist only seeks war after the victory has already been won. In the context of Bin Laden's stated mission to wage a nuclear war it is clear that the underlying message of Bin Laden's 9/11 attacks was that this master strategist had acquired a nuclear arsenal for his messianic army, probably in the form of a Boomer submarine (the most easily concealable and mobile nuclear arsenal). The means to victory in a nuclear war, a secured nuclear arsenal, would be a lot more difficult to acquire amidst the tightened security of the post-9/11 world. Furthermore, a failed attempt to acquire nuclear weapons after 9/11 could result in a major public relations setback for Al Qaeda as the group would appear more clearly to be the true fomenter of the world war. While it is true America's demonization is absolutely crucial to Bin Laden's war effort, America's complacency about Al Qaeda's secret deployed nuclear arsenal is equally important. Allowing time for the Bush Administration to ostracize America from the global community and lulling America into complacency about the Al Qaeda threat, Al Qaeda has acquired the means and currently lies in wait to totally destroy America.
The fact that Bin Laden has possessed a nuclear arsenal before 9/11 and has chosen not to use it is a further indication that world opinion is absolutely crucial to his plan for Messiah pretension. Although he secretly possessed the power to deter an American invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq, Bin Laden allowed the two helpless nations to be overrun in order to serve his megalomaniac plan of demonizing America. Bin Laden will only wage the nuclear war in such a way as America appears like the Great Satan empire and he appears like the Messiah of the Apocalypse who destroys the Great Satan. Accordingly, Bin Laden wishes to transfer war guilt to America not only for the post-9/11 war but for the ensuing nuclear war. From this perspective, Al Qaeda's use of a nuclear arsenal would be entirely unconventional, using it neither as a deterrent nor as a first strike weapon, but rather as a follow-up holocaustic strike weapon. Based on this strategy Al Qaeda will try to provoke a first nuclear strike by America on a Muslim nation, in which case Al Qaeda will respond with a limited nuclear strike on America. This strike would likely involve a secondary nuclear option instead of the Boomer submarine, whose secrecy would have to be ensured up to the moment of total launch to better the chances of operational success. Numerous sources have confirmed that Al Qaeda acquired a number of suitcase nuclear bombs from the ex-Soviet black market in the late 1990s. Such portable nuclear bombs allow Al Qaeda ease of concealment and deployment ideal for Bin Laden's first nuclear strike against America.
At this point Al Qaeda would offer forth a false display of a just execution, offering America a stay of execution in return for total surrender to Al Qaeda. Regardless of American intentions Al Qaeda will then proceed to destroy America by unleashing its Boomer's arsenal. Since Al Qaeda has been a stateless empire since the fall of the Taliban, the nuclear attack will be an act completely free of state-sponsorship that offers no targets for nuclear retaliation. If the American administration does retaliate against innocent Muslim nations America will be further demonized and Bin Laden further glorified in his bid for Messiah pretension. In terms of portraying America as the greatest evil of the war and Bin Laden as the great righteous one it would immensely benefit Al Qaeda if the American administration used America's vast nuclear arsenal to kill far more innocents than Bin Laden, and thereby surpass Bin Laden's crimes to become the greatest mass murderer in history. After destroying the world's only superpower Bin Laden's empire will rule the world by nuclear terrorism, in parallel with the apocalypse myth of the Messiah who destroys the Great Satan and conquers the world. Al Qaeda would then be in a position to unite humanity forcefully through allegiance to Bin Laden's theology.
Resolution
While it is true Bin Laden's terrifying objectives are currently on a course to fruition, it is equally true that America still has the power to thwart this madman's designs. The necessary precursor to Bin Laden's nuclear war, the appearance of a sustained American-Israeli crusade in the Middle East, is an image America can dispel. Even despite the damage done to America's reputation, America can still reverse course and defeat Al Qaeda in a public relations war. Under the Bush Administration, however, America's shadow empire will continue to force its maker to do Bin Laden's bidding. Al Qaeda will continue to guide America to a nuclear holocaust as long as the Bush Administration is in power.
The climax to Bin Laden's rise to global domination would be the exchange of thrones with Bush, as Al Qaeda became the ruler of the world and Bush became the ruler of an empire of ashes. This event would signal the culmination to Bin Laden's usurpation of the American presidency, a process that began when Bin Laden assisted Bush's presidential election with the bombing of the USS Cole, was catalyzed when the 9/11 attacks instigated Bush's military crusade in the Middle East, and reached its fruition in American-occupied Iraq where Bin Laden has begun to foment a greater conflict in the Middle East. Bin Laden has manipulated the Bush Administration into setting the stage for his global coup d' etat when he will kill the king superpower and steal the throne of world domination. Only by rejecting Bush's policy and voting the presidency out of Bin Laden's control can the American public thwart Bin Laden's plan.
Bin Laden's Ultimate Objective: Millennium Messiah Pretension
It is not an aberration that at the turn of the millennium a man created the world's strongest army and began a world war to destroy an empire he identified as the Great Satan. Prevalent in cultures across the world is the myth of the Millennial Messiah of the Apocalypse, a future revolutionary leader who arrives at the onset of a millennium to destroy Satan and establish God's Kingdom on earth. By his own utterances and actions Bin Laden has made clear that his ultimate objective is to portray himself as the Messiah of the Apocalypse.
With painstaking detail Bin Laden has sculpted his personage to mirror the Muslim Messiah. By hijacking the radical Islamic revolution and presenting himself as the destroyer of the Great Satan America, Bin Laden has molded his public image to strikingly resemble the holy warlord figure of the Messiah. In clear imitation of the myth of the Millennial Messiah Bin Laden escalated his attacks on the eve of the third millennium and began his world war against the "Great Satan" when he martyred himself and his nation by instigating the American invasion of Afghanistan in the first year of the millennium. Bin Laden's war against America has positioned him as the Great Satan's chief nemesis, an enemy of seemingly divine power who has inflicted more damage and been more elusive than any in modern American history. By instigating the Bush Administration to invade and occupy Muslim lands in the Middle East in tandem with Israel, Bin Laden has justified his attacks in world opinion by forcing America into portraying the Great Satan of the Apocalypse myth who oppresses Muslims. With both covertly and overtly sinister means Bin Laden has meticulously designed the war he will use to justify destroying America.
Beyond satisfying his abyss of hatred for America, America's destruction would portray the victory of the Messiah over the Great Satan and the rise of Al Qaeda to world domination by nuclear terrorism. Mirroring the Messiah's righteous kingdom of God, Al Qaeda's stated goal is to rule the world by military force and implement a "golden age" for Islam, redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor and forcing its religious doctrine onto humanity. The righteous appearance of Bin Laden's movement disguises the true motive for his nuclear holocaust, Messiah pretension, the abominably sinister act of selfishness behind the 9/11 war.
Like the two other colossal Messiah Pretenders in modern history, Napoleon and Hitler, Bin Laden is a threat that can only be defeated by a strong international alliance of nations founded upon the global condemnation of Bin Laden. The fact that Al Qaeda's post-9/11 efforts have been focused on transferring war blame to America reveals the importance of global opinion to Bin Laden's Messiah pretension. It is the global opinion of America that can make or break the global coalition against Al Qaeda and simultaneously vilify or glorify Al Qaeda. Considering Bin Laden's ultimate objective, the global public relations front of the world war is more important than any military front in preventing Al Qaeda from destroying America.
Mahdi
Bin Laden's efforts to woo global opinion revolve around the characterization of the Muslim Messiah, known as the Mahdi. Islam's equivalent of the Second Coming of Christ, the Mahdi is the most revered figure in Islam after the Prophet Mohammed. A major fixture in conservative Islam today is the study of this mythological man, a messianic deliverer who for over a thousand years Muslims have eagerly awaited(32). While the Quran does mention the Second Coming of Jesus, a story from Islam's Christian roots, the Islamic prophecies concerning the Mahdi originate entirely from the ancient corollaries to the Quran, the Hadiths. The writings of the Hadiths are universally accepted holy scriptures in Islam, revered by all but the strictest fundamentalists (a group which interestingly does not include Al Qaeda). The Hadiths describe the Mahdi as a the preeminent Muslim character in the story of the Apocalypse, a religious, political and military leader who ends oppression and injustice by waging the final war of purification against the Devil's agent that paves the way for God's Kingdom on earth. As the most revered title in Islam, a man who attained widespread Muslim recognition as the Mahdi would effectively control Islam.
Bin Laden's career as a religious, political and military has clearly portrayed him as the colossal figure of the Mahdi. Bin Laden has established himself as the most momentous man in modern Islamic history, carving into the Western and Muslim psyche the rhetoric of jihad against "Jewish and Christian crusaders" while at the same time successfully waging war for over a decade against the empire widely regarded by Muslims as the Great Satan. He is the man who has consciously instigated a global military invasion of Muslim lands by the West, creating a global war in simulation of the story of the Apocalypse War. In further imitation of the Mahdi's story, Bin Laden's stated objective is to end the military, economic and cultural oppression of Muslims by the West, establish global justice by forcefully reallocating wealth from the rich to the poor, and implement the kingdom of his God on earth. Bin Laden's messianic quest to destroy an empire his culture labels "the Great Satan" fundamentally constitutes a bid for Messiah pretension.
While Bin Laden's attempt at Messiah pretension has been the most successful, throughout history there have been numerous attempts to claim the title of Mahdi. Two such claims that dramatically inspired Bin Laden's own movement occurred at the onset of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Ayatollah Khomeini began a Mahdist movement in Iran based on anti-Americanism, specifically calling for the destruction of the "Great Satan" America. In addition to Khomeini's model of a Muslim Messiah saving his people from domination by a superpower, another Mahdist movement closer to home sparked Bin Laden's own quest. Soon after Khomeini's revolution overtook Iran, a Saudi Wahhabi Mahdi movement seized control of Islam's holiest site in Mecca and attempted to overthrow the Saudi monarchy. Bin Laden began his career as a Wahhabi freedom fighter in this very same year, 1979, when he began his leadership of the Afghan mujahedeen movement to expel the Soviet Union, a "Great Satan" superpower that had invaded and terribly oppressed Muslim Afghanistan. Bin Laden later continued his Mahdist movement by forming Al Qaeda on the pretext of overthrowing the Saudi monarchy, a rallying call he publicly morphed over the following years to focus his movement on the central goal of destroying the "Great Satan" America. Instigated by two of the most prominent Mahdist movements in modern history, Bin Laden has carefully pursued his own Mahdist movement that has outshined any of its predecessors.
Beyond his meticulous campaign to mimic the life of the Mahdi, Bin Laden has essentially made the overt claim to the title of Mahdi. A prominent feature resonating from the 1979 Islamic Revolution that inspired Bin Laden's career was the widespread belief that the Mahdi would appear on the world stage at the time of the Millennium to begin a geo-religious revolution and wage the War of the Apocalypse. Bin Laden's timing of his war against America coincided with the Millennium, an intentional action tantamount to a claim to the title of Mahdi. Bin Laden greatly escalated his attacks in 2000 with the bombing of the USS Cole coupled with a wave of other terrorist attempts, and then climaxed his campaign against the "Great Stan" in the first year of the third millennium with the 9/11 attacks. As revealed by the fact that the Bush Administration's post-9/11 retaliation has been a catalyst for the Al Qaeda movement, Bin Laden additionally seized control of the government of the world's only superpower during the Millennium by assisting a man to the American presidency who would respond to Bin Laden's manipulation and portray America as an evil empire crusading against Islam. Becoming the most famous man in the world by beginning World War III against the "Great Satan" and martyring his adopted nation in the first year of the Millennium, Bin Laden's millennium campaign represented his claim to be the Millennium Messiah who is waging the War of the Apocalypse.
Even more overtly than the timing of his attack, Bin Laden has explicitly laid claim to being the Mahdi. A particular videotape of Bin Laden has been the focus of much attention in intelligence circles, in which Bin Laden stands before a dry-erase board that has written on it the name "Mahdi", meaning "awaited enlightened one". Bin Laden has encouraged this belief about him among his followers, who have furthered vocalized his claim. Al Qaeda detainees in Guatanamo Bay have told interrogators they joined Bin Laden's jihad because they believe he is the Mahdi, and American military intelligence has revealed that some of the Al Qaeda operatives infiltrating Iraq from abroad are doing so because of their belief in Islamic prophecy(33). The fact that the Taliban government sacrificed itself to protect a man who had intentionally provoked an American invasion suggests that the Taliban rulers had a similar ultimate reverence for Bin Laden's stature. The growing widespread belief in Muslim nations that Bin Laden is the Mahdi reflects the success Bin Laden has enjoyed thus far in his Mahdi movement, a public testament that strongly encourages Al Qaeda to escalate its efforts.
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