Remarks by Raymond A. Eve, Ph. D.

Professor of Sociology

The University of Texas at Arlington

October, 2001

eve@uta.edu

817-272-2661

Presentation to the UTA

Liberal Arts Constituency Council Session

“Making Sense of September 11^th”

I. Who is Osama bin Laden? What is al Qaeda?

Osama bin Laden is an Islamic ultra-fundamentalist and the son of a wealthy Saudi billionaire construction magnate. He was born in 1957 and is the 17th of 52 children. His family has disowned him due to sharp disagreement with his current activities. Bin Laden grew up in Saudi Arabia, and through successful business ventures became a multi-millionaire in his own right.

Since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, bin Laden has used his public statements to create an image as the leader of a religious struggle on behalf of the downtrodden and culturally dispossessed of the Islamic world.

According to former associates of bin Laden, his anger at the United States grew after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, and the resultant decision to station thousands of troops in Saudi Arabia. In a lengthy statement in 1996 where he presented his philosophy, bin Laden denounced the "occupation" of the Arab Holy Land by "American crusader forces," which he described as "the latest and greatest aggression" against the Islamic world since the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632.

Kept under house arrest in Saudi Arabia, because of his opposition to the Saudi alliance with the United States, bin Laden eventually fled the country in April 1991, moving first to Afghanistan and then to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. There a fundamentalist Islamic government had just come to power and was permitting Muslims to enter the country without visas, thereby opening the doors for hundreds of suspected terrorists.

U.S. prosecutors say bin Laden is the leader of al Qaeda (Arabic for "the Base"), a worldwide network blamed for both successful and failed strikes on U.S. targets. These activities include the millennium bombing plot (to attack Los Angles airport on New Year’s Eve of the recent millennium), last year's attack on the navy vessel USS Cole in Yemen, and the nearly simultaneous bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.

Bin Laden's anger with the United States stems from the 1990 decision by Saudi Arabia to allow the U.S. to stage attacks on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and Iraq. After the U.S. victory, the U.S. military presence became permanent. Plus he, and others, blame the continuing economic embargo on Iraq for huge human suffering there, including it is claimed a large number of deaths of children from malnutrition.

In a CNN interview with bin Laden in 1997, he said the ongoing U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia is an "occupation of the land of the holy places."

He left Saudi Arabia in 1991 after feuding with the Saudi monarchy, taking assets that had grown to an estimated $250 million with him, U.S. officials say.

In 1996, bin Laden issued a "fatwah," a religious decree, urging Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. A second fatwah in 1998 called for attacks on American civilians.

Afganastan, the Soviet Union, and bin Laden:

Bin Laden began forming his network in 1979, when he went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets alongside Afghan resistance fighters known as the mujahedeen. At the outset, his role was merely to raise funds in Pakistan for the mujahedeen. However, towards the end of the war, he moved to Afghanistan and took part in several battles against the Soviet army. At that time, the Afghan mujaheddin were receiving major financial and logistical support from the United States and other Western governments. Bin Laden, however, saw little difference between the Soviet Union and the United States. In bin Laden’s opinion, both superpowers were equally villainous. He felt that the United States might be temporarily supporting "freedom movements" in Afghanistan for geopolitical reasons, but he also felt that the U. S. was on the side of what he termed "oppressive forces" in Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden used his family's wealth and acquaintances to raise money for the Afghan resistance and provide the mujahedeen with both logistic and humanitarian aid. Eventually he participated in several battles in the Afghan war.

Near the end of the war with the Soviets, bin Laden formed al Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is an organization of ex-mujahedeen and other supporters. Once the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. There he became involved in Saudi groups opposed to the reigning monarchy, the Fahd family. As a result, in 1994, the Saudi government stripped him of his citizenship and froze any remaining assets he may have had in the country.

Al Qaeda and its links to other jihad groups

Bin Laden is believed to be at the center of an international coalition of Islamic radicals. Al Qaeda has forged alliances with like-minded fundamentalist groups such as Egypt's Al Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah, Sudan's National Islamic Front, and other jihad (“religious war”) groups in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia.

Bin Laden's organization also has ties to the "Islamic Group," led at one time by Omar Abdel Rahman. Rahman is an Egyptian cleric who is now serving a life sentence since his 1995 conviction for an attempted plot to blow up various New York landmarks. Two of Rahman's sons joined forces with bin Laden in the late 1990s.

The United States believes that from about 1992, bin Laden and other al Qaeda members targeted U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. He is also believed to have targeted those stationed in the Horn of Africa – a region that includes Somalia.

In October 1993, 18 U.S. servicemen involved in the U.S. humanitarian relief effort in Somalia were killed and one soldier's body dragged through the streets. Bin Laden was indicted in 1996 on charges of training the people involved in the attack. In a 1997 interview with CNN, bin Laden said his followers and some local Muslims had killed the troops. U.S. law enforcement also believes that bin Laden has ties to failed attacks on hotels in Yemen where U.S. troops were stationed on their way to Somalia.

According to U.S. officials, bin Laden has financed several terrorist training camps in northern Sudan and Yemen. At one time he appears to have been interested in acquiring nuclear and chemical weapons components. U.S. investigators also are said to have established financial links between bin Laden and Ramzi Yousef. Yousef is the organizer of the February, 1993, World Trade Center bombing.

The Sudan expelled bin Laden in 1996 in response to United States diplomatic and political pressures. As a result, he returned to Afghanistan where he set up training camps in the mountains.

On August 7, 1998, eight years after the U.S. deployment in Saudi Arabia, a pair of truck bombs exploded outside the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. While bin Laden has denied responsibility, prosecutors allege he is guilty based on faxes sent by an associated London terrorism cell to at least three international media outlets. Prosecutors have pointed to incriminating statements by alleged embassy bombers who have admitted that they are al Qaeda members.

As a result of the attacks just mentioned, on August 20, 1998, then-President Clinton ordered missile attacks against suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. (The U. S. has since backed off on claims that the pharmaceutical plant was a disguised chemical weapons factory).

Bin Laden survived those missile attacks. He was, however, indicted by the United States on charges of masterminding the attacks in November 1998. Four of his alleged supporters were convicted of the bombings in early 2001, and subsequently sentenced to life in prison.

The man who pleaded guilty to a failed plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium celebrations leading up to New Year's Day 2000 claimed he was trained at an Afghanistan camp run by bin Laden.

According to U.S. terrorism experts, the Taliban, the ruling party in Afghanistan, appears to have reached an arrangement with bin Laden. In return for providing him a safe-haven, they have in turn received financial and military support for their efforts to gain control over the entire country (the northern sector of which is held by opposition forces).

I am indebted to writer Michael Dobbs and researcher Robert Thomason of the Washington Post. Considerable of the information given above was provided by them. Also I am indebted for information used here to CNN’s Nancy Pekenham, Phil Hirschkorn, Peter Bergen, and Douglas Wood. The responsibility for the words and ideas in the next section is entirely my own. R.A.E.

II. Terrorism – Tactics and Rationales

Let us begin by noting that the task of setting down an adequate definition of terrorism is a very difficult one. A host of rather different tactics, employed by diverse aggregates having diverse motives and goals makes any simple definition impossible. For our purposes here, I will define terrorism as “acts of violence or destruction targeted against people, property, or both, for the purposes of creating widespread fear and anxiety.”

It is easy to see the effects of terrorism in the modern world. Unfortunately, what is not so easy to see is the logic behind these acts and potential effective solutions. A reasonable response to terrorist acts, however, requires that we examine its sources and logic, no matter how repugnant, in order to mount protective counter-measures.

There are several reasons that propel the use of terrorism. On rare occasion, a real world event may represent only one of these reasons. More likely, however, is that any given event demonstrates more than one of the motivations delineated below.

Terrorism and Non-violent Resistance: Pariah Choices

Let us note that the most obvious reason for the choice of terrorist tactics arises out of a situation of relative powerlessness on the part of the terrorists. Terrorism is often the tactic of choice when a dissident group faces a situation in which a frontal assault on the enemy by conventional means of conflict would almost certainly result in defeat. Oddly, at least at first glance, terrorism is one side of a coin that shows non-violent resistance on the opposite face. Non-violent resistance and terrorism arise out of the same circumstances. Indeed, the two forms of resistance often co-exist and are responses to the dilemma of relative powerlessness. A case in point can be seen in colonial India under British rule. Any overt battle with the British Army was out of the question because the outcome would be certain defeat. These circumstances gave rise to Gandhi’s liberation movement based on the tactics of non-violence. However, other forces in India at the time sought to employ terrorist tactics against the British.

Only the circumstances yield a commonality between terrorism on the one hand and non-violent resistance on the other; there the similarity ends. Non-violent resistance is intended to tell us a morality tale that appeals to a sense of morality and fair-play in both the oppressor and to bystander audiences. The tale is intended in invoke deep emotions that the situation should be restructured to be one that is more moral and just. In the words of Gandhi himself, “If we do not strike back, they [the British] become the criminals and we become the law.”

In stark contrast, the terrorist (for reasons we will see in a few moments) seeks to create a sense of stark disorder and chaos. Underlying this motive, strangely, is the same logic as non-violent resistance – the hope that both the oppressor and observers will be motivated to act in ways that will restore order out of chaos and give us a sense of correctness. However, while non-violent resistance seeks such ends through an appeal to a sense of fair play by all concerned, terrorism seeks to do its work through the deliberate and specific generation of an over-reaction, a backlash, in response to the incidents it has implemented.

With this general understanding in hand, let us look at some of the specific reasoning behind terrorist incidents of recent days. Before doing so, however, let us emphasize that the public stereotype of terrorism as random acts of violence by insane individuals is far from the mark in most cases. The government’s official explanation for most U. S. foreign policy entanglements have typically sought to depict such problems as a conflict of individual personalities. What was the problem in Iran? The Ayatollah Khomeini, it is was said. In Panama? Manuel Noriega. In Iraq? Saddam Hussein, of course. In Libya? Moammar Kadafi. Now, of course, the alleged madman is Osama bin Laden. Such a simplistic view of the world, i.e., that all these conflicts are caused by “crazy men,” is a convenient way of drawing our attention away from the fact that these individuals typically have a large number of followers who find no fault in the logic of their leaders. The “mad man” theory is, of course, put forth to distract the world’s attention from difficulty but real political, economic, and religious issues. It is also intended to promote the idea that we need not change ourselves, our society, or our current way of doing things since it is said that the only problem is the insanity of a few persons. Instead of such a view, I will here emphasize the notion that many of the issues that divide the world are quite real, and that these issues often admit of no simple solution that will satisfy all parties.

The Logic of Terrorism: A Typology

a. Logic 1: To force political negotiations

Terrorism of the style popular for most of the second half of the 20^th Century was often terrorism intended to bring perceived oppressors to the political bargaining table when otherwise they would likely ignore any request for meaningful negotiations. Let us examine the Irish Republican Army (IRA) for example.

Northern Ireland is largely Protestant, generally beholden to the government of England, and wealthier than the larger part of Ireland –this latter of which is primarily Catholic. (Such problems are notoriously difficult to solve because of the overlapping structural divisions – i.e., political, religious, and economic divisions that all overlap. The same situation, of course, characterizes the Arab-Israeli conflict.). The IRA often tossed bombs into pubs in northern Ireland, seemingly at random. Such a tactic plays into the hands of those who would depict the IRA actions as insane. However, the IRA actually sought such an image to a certain degree. Why? Because no government in a free society can stand for long if it cannot insure food, shelter, life itself, and domestic tranquility. If the English could be shown to be powerless to prevent “chaos” from overtaking those in Northern Ireland, their political legitimacy would begin to erode among those in Northern Ireland. Terrorist seek to create widespread and intense existential angst. Most individuals, religions, and governments constantly struggle to find ways to reassure themselves that the universe and human existence is not random and meaningless. Terrorist often recognize that if such fears can be created and fanned, citizens will seek a new form of government that can negate these ultimate human anxieties. To the extent that they can make an existing government appear unable to protect its citizenry from total randomness and meaninglessness, the greater the chances of fomenting a collapse of the existing governmental institutions. (Note the cries in recent days of “Why didn’t the government prevent this before it happened!”).

Let us return to our example of the IRA’s strategy. How would the English prevent random bombing of pubs and other public places? If the perpetrators followed a pattern in their attacks, they would be relatively easy to deal with given the overwhelming resources of the English government. However, if one can make the violence seem random, the problem changes. Let us suppose most Irish Catholics initially find the terrorist acts horrible or at least reprehensible, and therefore do not lend their support to the IRA’s cause. However, the in order to combat a random pattern of bombings, the soldiers acting on the part of England will insist on seeing the identification of a great many Irish Catholics while they seek out the actual perpetrators. They will search the homes of innocent persons. They will detain the family members of many Catholics for questioning, and so forth. The effect is, of course, to anger formerly neutral Irish Catholics due to the high-handed tactics of soldiers from other soil. So here is the main point, the original terrorist activity was purposely made to look random in order to provoke the British government into making a repressive response. The repressive response itself then strengthens the support for the terrorists by converting formerly neutral constituents. A major goal is to bring the English to the bargaining table whereas they would otherwise feel they were powerful enough to merely ignore any negotiations and compromises. Here, then, we see terrorism largely used to move the conflict to the level of serious political negotiations.

In the meantime, the legitimacy of England’s government is seen as less worthwhile by the Northern Protestants who wonder why their government cannot protect them. Some of the parallels with the U. S. reaction to the recent destruction of the World Trade Center should be easy to work out.

Logic 2: “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”

A second instrumental purpose behind terrorism can be deduced when we examine the old dictum from Karl Marx that “external threat creates internal cohesion.” A perennial problem for the Arabs in their conflict with Israel has been a lack of unity within the Arab populations. Indeed, differing Arab nations have killed far more of each other’s citizens than have been killed by the Israelis. One has only to look at the enormous body count in the recent conflicts between Iran and Iraq for example – a conflict largely brought about because the participants represent two different branches of Islam. However, if the terrorists can provoke the U. S. into attacking a wide array of Arab nations, it is much more likely these nations will put aside their differences long enough to fight the good fight against Israel and the United States. Here we see the desire on the part of the terrorists, once again, to provoke an over-reaction. It is probable that it is for this reason that many fear the consequences of President Bush’s statements to Congress that nations are either “with us or against us.” Such a statement leaves no room for a middle ground. Some Arab governments fear the rage of terrorist within their own borders. To overtly and spectacularly side with the U. S. invite mayhem on their own soil. They might well choose to support the U. S., but a dramatic “hand-count” based on drawing a line in the sand makes it less likely they can come out in support of the U. S.. The “you are for us or you are against us approach,” followed through to an extreme would please the terrorists no end because the external threat would produce unity among Arab states formerly unfriendly to one another. Indeed, it would be likely to produce the illusive “Pan-Arab Unity” for war with Israel and the United States.

Logic 3: Hate-filled, expressive action

Sadly, the last reasons for terrorism are the obvious ones – hate and love of power. Many observers have noted that the new crop of terrorists characteristic of the last decade or two seem less concerned with moving towards conventional political processes for the redress of grievances. In some cases, psychiatric explanations may be part of the answer. For example, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, whom U.S. prosecutors described as the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, when speaking extensively of his actions seldom bothered to mention religion. Instead, he seemed to take great delight in his prowess with explosives, in much the same way that a pyromaniac feels pleased when he has witnessed a great fire he was able to cause.

As the CEO of the Rand Corporation recently noted, the new terrorists have different motives than the organizations with which we are most familiar (such as the PLO and the IRA). The older groups used terrorism towards specific political ends, as we have discussed above. They desired, respectively, a Palestinian state and Catholic rule of Northern Ireland. Towards such ends they sought negotiations. And they were generally content to limit casualties to small numbers, at most 100s. The new terrorists have a different world view. They have no stated or apparent political aims other than to cause as much harm as they can inflict on the U.S. and the West. They are motivated by deep hatred of Western society and of the U.S. specifically. Osama bin Laden is the archetype of this kind of terrorist. In his own words,

"To kill Americans and their allies -- military and civilian -- is an individual duty of every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."

Unfortunately, the new terrorists are focused on "spectacular" acts, and causing maximum damage to the West. The only real defense against them is to recognize that their views do not yet represent those of the more moderate Arabs and followers of Islam. Indeed, our best counter-tactic would probably be to recognize that the mainstream of Islam might be converted to a real hostility towards the extremists. To do this, however, would require a major rethinking of our past and current treatment of the Arab nations. It would require less emphasis on a U. S. foreign policy designed to maximize our own narrow interests in the Arab world. Instead we would need to seek meaningful dignity, equality, economic security, and sustainable development for the citizenry of those nations. If all this were done, there is a chance – and only a chance – that the people’s of the Arab nations would eventually see the terrorists as an infection within their own body.

In other words, if for most Arabs their own peace and prosperity were seen to lie in a political and economic world system that included the U. S., and that such outcomes were threatened by terrorist activity, a solution might present itself. However, it is unclear whether the U. S. can bring itself to such a course of action, both because we have long demonized our view of Arabs and because such actions fly in the face of immediate U. S. economic recovery and development. However, to not try these things is to be certain of decades of medium to low-intensity warfare.