Thoughts from a US Senate Staffer: Why Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and Islamic Terrorists Hate Us?

In a republic, of the people and by the people, individual citizens are entrusted with remarkable power over their government. Collectively, this means that we, as Americans, decide who represents us in our government and by extension, what those representatives do in our name. Especially for a country as powerful as the United States of America, the ability of its citizens to set the course of their government is an amazing opportunity. However, it is also a tremendous responsibility. Although each American has pressing concerns in his or her own life that may seem more important than endlessly keeping watch over government policies, no American is immune from the effects of those policies on the country and the world. Because of this, we must make an effort to understand the great issues of our day, especially those that pertain to matters of life and death. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, no issue fits that description better than the specter of Islamic terrorism.

In August of 1996, Osama bin Laden, the inspirational leader of al-Qaida and beloved figure throughout much of the Middle East and Africa, released his official rationale for an Islamic "holy war" against America. Entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places," the document describes, in detail, what America has done wrong (from his perspective) and why this justifies the sort of action that occurred on September 11, 2001. Considering the scope of America's "War on Terror," as well as its cost (in terms of both blood and treasure), it would be prudent for the American public to understand why this war is being waged in the first place. The following is a very basic introduction to bin Laden's roughly 21-page 1996 declaration of war. Keep in mind that this is an introduction to a few of bin Laden's viewpoints, and not my own; this is neither an endorsement nor repudiation of bin Laden's views.

First, however, allow me to explain my credentials. I am not an expert on the Middle East, Islam, US foreign policy, or political violence. I do not have unique insights into any of the subjects I will be addressing that derive from years of intensive study and experience. What I am, above all else, is an average American. I was born into an average family, raised in the very average Midwest, and educated in all-too-average public schools. Like most Americans, I have bills and taxes to pay, professional and academic aspirations to pursue, and a personal life to sustain. In short, what this means is that my understanding of Osama bin Laden and Islamic terrorism is nothing extraordinary. It is not necessary to be an expert to understand the great issues of our day. Every American can and indeed must make an effort to do so, for as bin Laden himself has stated, our security is in our own hands. [1]

A number of important issues surface in the declaration. Bin Laden takes issue with American support for Israel and contends that America and its allies do not value the lives of Muslims. To support this claim, bin Laden makes note of specific conflicts in which American or American-supported groups have killed Muslims:

Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajakestan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Erithria, Chechnia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience.... More than 600,000 Iraqi children have died due to lack of food and medicine and as a result of the unjustifiable aggression (sanction) imposed on Iraq and its nation. The children of Iraq are our children. You, the USA, together with the Saudi regime are responsible for the shedding of the blood of these innocent children. [2]

Bin Laden also makes references to the success of Islamic mujahideen (holy warriors) in repelling the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. This reference is used within bin Laden's larger effort to recruit young Muslims, as well as to remind his followers and the world that even superpowers can be beaten.

While the above-mentioned issues (and others) are significant features of the declaration, the greatest majority of the document is devoted to a discussion of Saudi Arabia. Indeed, according to bin Laden:

The latest and the greatest of these (American and allied) aggressions ... is the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places (Saudi Arabia)-the foundation of the house of Islam, the place of the revelation, the source of the message and the place of the noble Ka'ba, the Qiblah (the direction towards which Muslims pray) of all Muslims-by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies. [3]

For a multitude of reasons, the situation in Saudi Arabia is bin Laden's primary concern and basis for promoting attacks against the United States. In essence, bin Laden argues that the Saudi regime is illegitimate and must be overthrown, but that American support for the regime makes that impossible. Therefore, bin Laden argues, America must be the main target in any Islamic jihad (holy war or struggle) until it stops providing the necessary life-support to the Saudi regime. Clearly, then, if for no other reason than to understand why America has been targeted for attacks like those of 9/11, Americans are well advised to become informed about the situation within Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden states that there are two primary reasons that the government of Saudi Arabia has become illegitimate:

(1) Suspension of the Islamic Shari'ah law and exchanging it with man made civil law...

(2) The inability of the regime to protect the country, and allowing the enemy of [the Muslim people]-the American crusader forces-to occupy the land for the longest of years. The crusader forces became the main cause of our disastrous condition, particularly in the economical aspect of it due to the unjustified heavy spending on these forces. As a result of the policy imposed on the country, especially in the field of oil industry where production is restricted or expanded and prices are fixed to suit the American economy, ignoring the economy of the country. Expensive deals were imposed on the country to purchase arms. People are asking what is the justification for the very existence of the regime then? [4]

The first point deals with the Saudi regime's refusal, in bin Laden's view, to abide by the laws established in the Quran. Because Saudi Arabia is home to Islam's two holiest places, Mecca and Medina, bin Laden views the Saudi regime's indiscretions as being particularly egregious. Note that this is not equivalent to bin Laden expecting a non-Islamic nation such as the United States to follow Islamic law. Rather, for bin Laden to expect Saudi Arabia to act according to Islam is comparable to an American expecting the United States to act according to its founding principles; in both cases, the issue is whether or not the government in question lives up to its own stated principles. Currently, Saudi Arabia is a nominally Islamic country, in which women are stoned to death if caught in the act of adultery; where Christians (or, for that matter, any non-Muslims) are forbidden to practice their religion; and where, in 2002, because some of the girls were not properly covered, police prevented children from exiting a burning schoolhouse, resulting in fourteen deaths.[5]

It is not so much that bin Laden necessarily demands a more extreme form of government in Saudi Arabia, but rather one that does not apply Islamic law in what he views as an unjust and arbitrary fashion. According to Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center, bin Laden takes issue specifically with the Saudi regime's "... harassment, persecution, and incarceration of reformers; media censorship and manipulation; mismanagement and corruption in the financial and economic sectors; perversion of the Islamic legal system with temporal laws; use of foreign mercenaries; material support to the enemies of Islam; and failure to defend the country."[6] Although demanding that a government act in exact accordance with the rules and values of a certain religion is contrary to the American principle of the separation of church and state, it is not contrary to any universal standard of principles, and certainly is not contrary to any set of principles in a nation that already uses religion as a basis for law.

The second point, dealing with issues of Saudi security and sovereignty, is fairly self-explanatory. However, his contention about the Saudi-US oil relationship requires a certain degree of background information to understand. A number of experts have contended that Saudi Arabia has consistently and intentionally flooded the market with oil in order to keep the price at levels acceptable to the West in exchange for American military protection and a guarantee of non-interference. Besides exerting downward pressure on oil prices worldwide, some experts note that Saudi Arabia directly or indirectly sells oil cheaper to America than it does to other nations. According to Robert Baer, a former CIA agent with experience in the Middle East, evidence of this market manipulation can be seen "Throughout the nineties, (when) Americans (and Europeans) consistently paid less for Saudi oil than Asians paid, on the average of $1.00 a barrel. In 2001, prices split sharply, with Americans reportedly buying Saudi oil for $4.83 less a barrel."[7]

According to Baer's admittedly rough calculation, if Middle Eastern oil had been sold on the world market without the price-reducing surpluses produced and sold by Saudi Arabia for the past fifty years, there would be a "wealth transfer on the order of $76 trillion from the industrial economies to the Muslim world, about $1.5 trillion a year."[8] Bin Laden is a firm believer in this rationale and interprets it as meaning that Western nations (especially the United States) are prospering from the corruption of the Saudi government while the Muslim people are suffering in poverty. While he certainly views the situation in Saudi Arabia to be unacceptable and is his primary justification for attacks upon the US, note that bin Laden does not demand that the United States rectify the situation within Saudi Arabia itself. His only demand of Washington in this regard is that it must stop supporting (what he views as) the illegitimate government of Saudi Arabia.

Despite the easy access the internet provides to this document and others like it, a number of misperceptions about Osama bin Laden's stated views prevail in the Western media and political discourse. One of the most pervasive of these misperceptions is that terrorism is the first and only preference of Osama bin Laden and his followers as a tool of political change. In fact, the 1996 declaration offers a detailed history of the non-violent efforts pursued by bin Laden and other Muslims before they resorted to terrorism. According to bin Laden, when American troops were first stationed in Saudi Arabia in large numbers:

Quick efforts were made by individuals and by different groups of the society to contain the situation and to prevent the danger. They advised the government both privately and openly; they send letters and poems, reports after reports, reminders after reminders, they explored every avenue and enlist(ed) every influential man in their movement of reform and correction. They wrote with (the) style of passion, diplomacy and wisdom asking for corrective measures and repentance from the "great wrong doings and corruption" that had engulfed even the basic principles of the religion and the legitimate rights of the people. [9]

Bin Laden goes on to describe multiple petitions that were sent to the Saudi government, signed by hundreds of religious and community leaders. While petitions rarely garner anything but symbolic attention in America, keep in mind that Saudi Arabia is not a democracy; offering advice is the only chance most Saudis have to influence their government. After the most important of these petitions, the 1992 Memorandum of Advice, was delivered, bin Laden states that:

Its content was rejected and those who signed it and their sympathizers were ridiculed, prevented from travel, punished and even jailed. Therefore it is very clear that the advocates of (the) correction and reform movement were very keen on using peaceful means in order to protect the unity of the country and to prevent bloodshed. Why is it then (that) the regime closed all peaceful routes and pushed the people toward armed actions?!! [10]

While, in the end, bin Laden and his followers certainly adopted violence as their primary tool of political change, they considered this to be a last resort rather than their first choice. In fact, even after adopting violent methods, bin Laden called for the simultaneous use of non-violent approaches, such as the boycotting of American goods. Referencing the extreme level of control the Saudi government maintains over most forms of political dissent, bin Laden states that:

The security and the intelligence services of the entire world cannot force a single citizen to buy the goods of his/her enemy. Economical boycotting of the American goods is a very effective weapon of hitting and weakening the enemy, and it is not under the control of the security forces of the regime. [11]

Clearly then, bin Laden himself would disagree with the perception that violence is the first and only preference of Islamic terrorists. While many Americans may not consider this significant, it might very well turn out to be an important lesson about the nature of political violence. If people (even the likes of Osama bin Laden and his followers) believe that there is any chance that non-violent approaches to political change are possible within a particular political system, they will be much less likely to resort to extreme measures.

Another common perception of Osama bin Laden is that if he and his followers ever successfully overthrew the Saudi regime and replace it with a fundamentalist Islamic state, they would simply refuse to sell oil to the United States. This idea stems from the more general view that bin Laden is an ideological extremist who will take every opportunity to hurt Americans. While that may be true, according to the views expressed in his own statements, bin Laden is nothing if not pragmatic. For instance, even though members of different branches of Islam often harbor extreme animosity for each other, bin Laden calls for all Muslims to disregard their differences and work together for the greater good. Also pragmatically, he explains the need to practice what he calls "guerilla warfare" as a matter of necessity rather than preference; for instance, since the imbalance of power between the American military and bin Laden's followers is so great, to practice conventional warfare is simply strategically impossible.

While no one can know for certain what would happen if a fundamentalist Islamic state gained control of such a sizeable portion of the world's oil reserves, bin Laden's 1996 statements about the Saudi reserves suggest that his pragmatism extends to the economics of oil as well. In a section that describes the American presence in the Middle East as the greatest threat to the safety of those oil reserves (as a result of the anger and instability it produces), bin Laden asks his followers to safeguard the Saudi oil fields.

(If the oil fields were damaged,) the economic interests of the States of the Gulf and the land of the two Holy Places will be damaged and even a greater damage will be caused to the economy of the world. I would like here to alert my brothers, the Mujahideen, the sons of the nation, to protect this (oil) wealth and not to include it in the battle, as it is a great Islamic wealth and a large economical power essential for the soon to be established Islamic state, by Allah's Permission and Grace. [12]

Even though the destruction or damage of the Saudi oil industry would be a crippling blow to the US economy, bin Laden not only asks his followers not to attack it, but also requests that they actively protect it. He even goes on to warn the American military not to attack the oil fields, fearing that it would do so to prevent the wealth from "falling into the hands of its legitimate owners."[13] Note that, like most people, bin Laden refers to the potential damage to the world economy as being a negative result of damage to the Saudi oil industry. More importantly, however, he considers the oil wealth to be "essential for the soon to be established Islamic state,"[14] meaning that he intends for that oil to be sold (rather than hoarded) for the resulting economic gain.

As previously mentioned, however, bin Laden does oppose the alleged Saudi practice of directly or indirectly selling oil at reduced prices to the United States. This means that if a fundamentalist Islamic state replaced the current Saudi regime, America's oil prices would likely increase to more closely match global market prices. Whether the status quo in this regard is maintained or the situation is drastically changed, this is a serious issue that affects the daily lives of all Americans. Because the price of oil affects the price of almost everything else in America, Americans may decide that it is in their best interest to maintain the status quo at whatever cost. However, Osama bin Laden would argue that American military presence in the Middle East and its support for (what he calls) repressive regimes also affects the economy and security of the United States, and that it would be in the best interest of all Americans if the status quo was changed. As citizens, it is our right, our responsibility, and our duty to become informed about these issues and make knowledgeable decisions about what our government should do about them.

Although Osama bin Laden's "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" is a complex document that goes into much greater depth than I have discussed above, I hope that this brief introduction to it has provided some insight into why, from bin Laden's perspective, America has become a target for attack. The issues that drive this war are not new, simple, or easily addressable, and none of them have been remedied or even alleviated in the years since September 11, 2001. One does not have to agree with Osama bin Laden in order to understand him, but understand him we must-for his war is now ours as well.

[1] BBC News, October 29, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3966817.stm.

[2] Osama bin Laden, "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places," Al-Quds Al-Arabi, August 23, 1996. Retrieved December 3, 2005, from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (New York: Crown Publishers, 2003), 22-26.

[6] Michael Scheuer, Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America (Washington, DC: Brassey's, Inc., 2002), 10-11.

[7] Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (New York: Crown Publishers, 2003), 45.

[8] Baer, Sleeping, xxvi-xxvii.

[9] Bin Laden, "Declaration."

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.