Just Who Is Bin Laden

Just Who Is Bin Laden

Wake Up
My three year old son woke up just as I was going back to bed at 2 am. He woke silently and decided to put the Thunderbirds DVD on. I jumped two feet out of my chair in the study at the sound of a movie blaring out. He was sitting there with leftover pizza and a near empty bottle of coke munching away fascinated by the time I got out to the lounge room. It was so adorable. He would not go back to be for love or money, so i let him sit there and watch the movie quietly. I came back in to the office and decided to find out once and for all information about Osama Bin laden, well as much as I can without meeeting the man anyhows.

Is he A Scapegoat?
He is a fascinating figure from both sides, the muslim perspective and from the Americans. I googled him for a bio and opened up about 15 tabs of bios in firefox. The first ones I read were pretty stupid and all contained American based bias. I found out as I read more and eliminated more bios that many were wrong. I finally found one that had some good info on his history and I started reading. The guy just wants the Americans out of the muslim lands.

Link Osama Bin Laden Bio

Bin Laden was brought up with good manners. He matured as extremely humble and very generous person. He insists to join his comrades in every act. Very frequently he cooks for them and serves them. He lives a simple life in a small flat in Jeddah or in a shed in Afghanistan and insists on his family to eat simple and to dress simple.
He is known to be strictly truthful and would never lie, but he is politically conscious and believes there is a room for political maneuver even if you are devoted person. Despite being shy he has dominating personality. He speaks very little and looks serious most of the time. He would appear with a soft smile but he seldom laughs. His followers see a lot of aura on him and show great voluntary respect to him. For some reason that falls short of a proper charisma. He is not known for giving distinguished speeches, and there is almost no audio or video recordings of him.
He is widely educated and spends a good deal of time reading. He is fond of media monitoring and information gathering and research. There was always a data management team with him wherever he went.
Among the outstanding features is his courage. He will not show a flicker even if a bomb exploded near him. He was exposed to more than 40 incidents of heavy bombardment, three of them were full of death and flesh around him. A Scud missile exploded 17 meters distance from him. At one time he was almost the victim of chemical weapons. More than once he needed treatment in hospital for body injuries. Despite this courage he is very cautious person. He would not keep any electronic instrument close to his vicinity. Some times he even avoids any device even if it is a simple watch near him because he believes this might help in targeting him.
He is intelligent and has reasonable strategic thinking, but he downgrades himself in the presence of Islamic scholars. He always admires Shiekh Safar al-Hawali and would have not gone through his current controversial path if al-Hawali was free. Some people saw him as a man with vision, others doubt it. They think that he never had clear long term plan. They see the last fatwah as evidence of that.

It says above he is strictly truthful. This I do believe. It also says he likes to political manuever, this I also believe. It is easy to have people believe what you want to believe by actually not saying something. Further reading the transcript now of Peter Arnetts interview with him I came to a part where I felt both these points stood.

Link Transcript

Above he manuevers and insinuates that perhaps he knew more about these incidents than he is admitting. In fact he is almost saying yes I had something to do with them without saying it. But below is the part that pricked my ears up..or eyes whatever

Mr. Bin Ladin, were you involved in financing the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City?
BIN LADIN: I have no connection or relation with this explosion.

He is talking of the 1993 WTC bombings here and he flat out says he did not have anything to do with them at all. Whereas above when discussing Riyadh he does not deny or admit anything. I think this is indicitive. He doesn't lie, "he flat out denied the WTC bombings", he does admit manuevering, "he was very washy about the embassy bombings". I think that interview says lots about what's really going on.

Link Rotten.Com's Attempt at a Bio
Despite this tepid non-denial denial, most scholars agree the Yemen attack was the first official act of terror by al Qaeda. It might have been lame, but bin Laden and his minions were nothing if not quick learners.
Reign of Terror
The pace of bin Laden's attacks on America picked up rapidly in the years that followed, and his aim improved considerably. In 1993, Ramzi Yousef bombed the World Trade Center, working with members of another terrorist group ensconced in New York, Islamic Jihad, a radical extremist organization with branches in Palestinian territories and Egypt. Evidence suggests that bin Laden was behind the 1993 attack.

I think not, he denied it.