Our Lady of Salvation Syriac Catholic Church in Iraq, destroyed by terrorist attack on October 31, 2010, in which 58 clergy and parishioners were murdered.
The Osama Raid Documents, seized by the Navy SEALs when they raided Osama bin Ladn's compound and assassinated him, make for fascinating reading if you have the time -- and would probably be more useful if you have some background in study of Al Qaeda (which I don't have).
Some right-wing blogs like this one as well as the conservative Washington Times have made much of the fact that bin Ladn has certain media he likes, because they are less critical of his terrorist organization. He singles out Keith Olbermann, fired from MSNBC and later Current TV who is very much a hard "progressive"; Octavia Lasser; Brian Ross of ABC who has reported on Al Qaeda and even quoted from a bin Ladn speech; 60 minutes.
But it's silly to set up these liberal media outlets as somehow terrorist sympathizers even if they minimize terrorism (as "progressives" often do) just because bin Ladn likes them. That's no reason to discredit them as such or shut them down. Let them publish what they like; the news media gets to report on Al Qaeda and yes, that will mean sometimes showing videos or quoting from speeches. What's important isn't their take on it; what's important is that there be a range of views; that there be pluralism. Pluralism is what bin Ladn hates; pluralism is the way to fight him, not exterminism of views that you think are sympathetic to his. That does include distinguishing the First-Amendment protected speech from material aid to foreign terrorist organizations, as the judge in this case does, to the chagrin of some "progressives".
There's a lot more about bin Ladn's thinking here (I'm assuming these documents have been authenticated), and I found one really important point that I think has to be put into every single debate about terrorism.
So often we hear the bin Ladn and his comrades were angry at the US presence in the Middle East; they are made furious at the physical boots on the ground of these US troops in places like Saudi Arabia, and that was their reason for committing the atrocity of 9/11.
Says Wikipedia, "The continued presence of US troops after the Gulf War in Saudi Arabia was one of the stated motivations behind the September 11th terrorist attacks[1]"
So in fact, troops were removed in 2003 on orders from Donald Rumsfeld because they were said to endanger American lives. But some still remain. "During mid-2003 roughly 4,500 US troops redeployed from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, leaving about 500 in Saudi Arabia, primarily at Eskan Village."
Of course, that didn't stop or lesson Al Qaeda's terrorist attacks because there were still some troops somewhere in the Middle East and of course America's support of Israel, which they hate.
But it really isn't about troops per se, and even if every single troop were removed, there'd still be static from Al Qaeda. Why? Because you have to look at the second thing he describes as the two causes for Al Qaeda's deadly mission:
Thus, the plague that exists in the nations of Muslims has two causes: The first is the presence of American hegemony and the second is the presence of rulers that have abandoned Islamic law and who identify with the hegemony, serving abandoned Islamic law and who identify with the hegemony, serving its interests in exchange for securing their own interests. The only way for us to establish the religion and alleviate the plague which was befallen Muslims is to remove this hegemony which has beset upon the nations and worshippers and which transforms them, such that no regime that rules on the basis of Islamic law remains. The way to remove this hegemony is to continue our direct attrition against the American enemy until it is broken and is too weak to interfere in the matters of the Islamic world.
So what really bothers bin Ladn is that "no regime that rules on the basis of Islamic law remains." That means for him, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, other countries don't rule on the basic of Islamic law sufficiently. It's not only troops in Saudi Arabia; it's that this regime in his view doesn't rule sufficiently on the basis of Islamic law. It's not fundamentalist enough, although we view it as highly fundamentalist.
Bin Ladn focuses on attacking the US as the "hegemon" that in his view backs these insufficiently Islamist regimes. He believes if you took away their support, they'd topple.
Of course, the whole reason the US is even supporting these despots -- amid great criticism from human rights activists -- is that they "need" them for security -- cooperation against terrorists. And to protect Israel. Of course, bin Ladn isn't going to accept that there's circular reasoning that he's the reason for, nor would he concede, of course, any protection of Israel. And no Arabic or Muslim state or power (like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt) really does concede the existence of the state of Israel as it is now -- some might be brought into peace aggreements or have external nods to "the two state solution" but basically, there is a core, visceral, infuriated hate of Israel and Jews driving a lot of the policies of the Middle Eastern dictatorships and we all know that. Nothing this small state, surrounded by hostile powers, does in its defense, even if a violation of human rights, should be allowed as an excuse to perpetuate this Muslim hatred and this refusal to accept its existence, even the pathological demands for its elimination.
But speaking of hatred of Jews, bin Ladn would like to leverage that in his interests, too. And he looks to Christians and Catholics for this as he knows he can find it among some of them. And he hopes to split them and especially foster those who are more sympathetic to Muslims.
So enter bin Ladn "the humanist," remonstrating with Al Qaeda in Iraq (which he seems a bit annoyed is even called that), that they shouldn't have bombed the Catholic Church and killed all the people at Mass there. That's of course one of the numerous attacks on civilians in Iraq by terrorists and militants, who are responsible for killing the overwhelming number of the 100,000 plus civilians there. That's why when leftists start up their "Bush lied, people died" rant claiming that "US troops" are responsible for this, I push right back and say, no, terrorists are -- terrorists whose existence and deadly attacks you can't blame merely on the presence of troops.
And now I'll add why, thanks to bin Ladn's explanation: because it's not merely about presence of troops, it's about troops supporting regimes that bin Ladn doesn't find heed Islamic law enough. THAT is the real concern for him.
Even bin Ladn found the attack on the Catholic church wrong -- in terms of the goals of his own terrorist movement to remove "the hegemon". He didn't feel it helped sow sufficient division among the ranks of the faithful and didn't help drive Catholics closer to Muslims. See what he says:
Also I was thinking of preparing an Arabic message to the Christians of the Arab region, calling them to Islam, and to caution them from cooperating with invader enemies of Islam who oppose the Islamic State. They should welcome the Islamic advance, as did their forefathers when the Muslims liberated Jerusalem during the time of 'Umar Ibn al-Khattab May God be satisfied with him.
Then the attack on the Catholic Church in Baghdad took place, launched by the organization of the Islamic State of Iraq that we support, which is if we like it or not known to people as (al-Qa'ida in Iraq). This attack halted me, and I thought twice
about my two project messages. As actions are more effective than words, their act and the contacts they carried during the attack, and the statement they issued later, do not help to gain people's sympathy. This attack came days after the declaration by the Catholics of the Middle East, of their disagreement with Israel in a way that made the Jews and their allies angry, the Catholics refusing to utilize the Bible to justify the
occupation and seizing of Palestine.
Also the Catholics were historically the prominent enemies of the Jews, amongst the other Christians. They were also the original enemies to the Evangelist Protestant who were the vanguard of the Crusades. Their public in general, these days, is more sympathetic and understanding of the Muslims, than other Protestant and Orthodox Christians. I do not eliminate the animosity, and do not say that if they had the chance they would not fight Muslims as did the Anglo-Saxon Protestants. I also do not deny the animosity of the Pope and other church heads to Islam and Muslims why not, Islam is the biggest threat for the continuity of their power, particularly in Europe. I do not deny that they send missionaries here and there, asking Muslims to apostasy. But I am talking about the public and present situation, and the size of animosity, and the size of the missionary activities. We cannot compare their efforts against Islam to the efforts of the Evangelist Protestants or the efforts of the Coptic Church and other spiteful Orthodox.
Even in Bosnia, we saw the Catholic Croats standing next to the Muslims against the Orthodox Serb. I have seen lately, in a report about Venezuela, a picture of a wall, with (Islam is the heritage of all) written on it.
The conclusion is that, in general, the Catholics are a fertile ground for call of God and to persuade them about the just case of the Mujahidin, particularly after the rage expanding against the mother church (Vatican) as a result of its scandals and policies refused by many of its public.
Gosh, this is like reading The Screwtape Letters.
