Why did Osama Bin Laden attack the United States?

From almost the first days of the War on Terror, leftists and anti-American writers and speakers have blamed the U.S. and the CIA for “creating” Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network. They have argued that the U.S. support for the Afghani mujahedeen fighters, funneled through the CIA and Pakistani intelligence agencies, allowed Bin Laden to build his network and, in time, turn it against the U.S. Among intelligence experts, this phenomenon is called “blowback” the occasional situation of an agent turning against his handlers and supporters. Although blowback could be a reasonable fear with creating an agent, it doesn’t apply here, in fact, most of the claims of leftist critics are completely unsupported by facts.

Two years after the Sept. 11 attacks, no memorial service, cable-news talkfest or university seminar seemed to have been complete without someone emerging from the woodwork to wonder darkly why the CIA ever financed Usama bin Laden “in the first place.”

Everyone from Washington Post reporters to Michael Moore seems to buy some version of this.

It is time to lay to rest the nagging doubt held by many Americans that our government was somehow responsible for fostering bin Laden. It’s not true and it leaves the false impression that we brought the Sept. 11 attacks down on ourselves. While it is impossible to prove a negative, all available evidence suggests that bin Laden was never funded, trained or armed by the CIA.

Bin Laden himself has repeatedly denied that he received any American support. “Personally neither I nor my brothers saw any evidence of American help,” bin Laden told British journalist Robert Fisk in 1993. In 1996, Mr. Fisk interviewed bin Laden again. The arch-terrorist was equally adamant: “We were never, at any time, friends of the Americans. We knew that the Americans supported the Jews in Palestine and that they are our enemies.”

There were two entirely separate rebellions against the Soviets, united only by a common communist enemy. One was financed by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and was composed of Islamic extremists who migrated from across the Muslim world. They called themselves “Arab Afghans.” Bin Laden was among them. When the Saudis agreed to match U.S. contributions dollar-for-dollar, the sheikhs insisted that their funds go exclusively to the “Arab Afghans,” possibly including bin Laden. Meanwhile, U.S. funds went exclusively to the other rebellion, which was composed of native Afghans. Mr. Bearden told me: “I challenge anyone to give any proof that we gave one dollar to any Arab Afghans, let alone bin Laden.”

Even if the CIA wanted to pay “Arab Afghans” — which agency officials insist they did not — bin Laden would be a far from obvious choice. Bin Laden himself rarely left the safety of Pakistan’s northwestern cities and commanded few troops of his own. At the time, bin Laden was the Arab Afghan’s quartermaster, providing food and other supplies.

If a CIA officer tried to give money to bin Laden, he probably would not have lived through the experience. The arch-terrorist was known for his violent anti-Americanism. Dana Rohrabacher, now a Republican congressman from California, told me about a trip he took with the mujahideen in 1987. On that trek, his guide told him not to speak English for the next few hours because they were passing by bin Laden’s camp. “If he hears an American, he will kill you.”

Why is this myth of CIA support for bin Laden so persistent? Some find the myth persuasive because they do not know that America and Saudi Arabia funded two different sets of anti-Soviet fighters. Others on the anti-American left and right, in both Europe and America, find it oddly comforting. It gives solace to those who want to think the worst of us. The CIA-funding myth allows them to return to a familiar pattern, to blame America first. Whatever the cause, this myth weakens America’s case for the war on terror by setting up a moral equivalency between America and Al Qaeda. This animates protests at home and makes it harder to win allies abroad.

When former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani learned that a Saudi prince had blamed U.S. policies for the Sept. 11 atrocity, he famously turned down the prince’s $10 million donation. His words at the time could be applied to the myth of CIA support for bin Laden: “There is no moral equivalent for this attack,” he said. “Not only are these statements wrong, they’re part of the problem.”

Lie Number One: The CIA recruited Osama Bin Laden, and thousands of Arabs, to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union.

Truth: The CIA didn’t recruit anyone to fight in Afghanistan, not even Bin Laden.

After Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in December 1979, the native Afghan fundamentalist factions that opposed the Soviet puppet regime were galvanized. Not only did they have a war against the ruling government, they had an actual superpower to declare jihad, or holy war, against. The call for jihad resonated throughout the Islamic world, striking a chord among the most fervent and extreme Islamic factions throughout the Middle East. Among these fundamentalists was a young Arabian son of an extremely wealthy and well-connected family — Osama Bin Laden. Without any active participation from the CIA as many as 25,000 Arabs went to take part in the jihad[1]. They went to join in the only legitimate holy war that was available to them at the time. As for Osama, he is reported to have told an interviewer from Arabic language Al-Quds al-Arabi, “I was enraged, and went there at once.”

Of course, there was really no need for any Arabs to be recruited for the struggle. Even if substantially more than the estimated 25,000 Arabs went to Afghanistan, the native Afghans involved in the jihad against the Soviet-backed regime numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The Arabs who came to join in were often reported by the natives to be more of a pain than a help. “They thought they were kings,” was what one Afghan told a reporter. The Arabs were more ignored by the Afghans than not. John Simpson, a BBC reporter, recounted that he had an encounter with Bin Laden. Bin Laden ordered the reporter’s Afghan driver to kill him, offering the driver five hundred dollars to do so — a very reasonable sum for an act which would have few consequences. The driver refused. Bin Laden was reported to have wept on his cot in frustration afterward.

Lie: The CIA trained Osama Bin Laden, and his supporters, in how to wage terror as a weapon of war.

Fact: The CIA trained absolutely no one in Afghanistan, or in neighboring Pakistan, neither in the tactics of terror or even in how to use the Stinger missiles provided to the Afghans.

The entire CIA effort in Afghanistan was more logistical than operational. Vince Cannistraro, the National Security Council staff director who headed up coordination of policy for Afghanistan in the mid-1980’s told author Peter Bergen that there were only six CIA employees in Pakistan at any given time — and none actually in Afghanistan — and that they were administrators rather than field officers. Bergen also reports that CIA officials only rarely met with leaders of the Afghan resistance, and never with the Arabs who came to the jihad. This is not to imply that U.S. officials never met with Afghan leaders. They did. There were plenty of photo opportunities to be had, and elected and high level bureaucrats often took advantage of them. But to believe that, say a Congressional staff member went to Afghanistan to train resistance warriors, much less terrorists would be pushing the bounds of possibility.

What the CIA did, in reality, was buy weapons, ammunition, and supplies, in vast quantities. The Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, distributed the weapons and supplies once the Americans delivered them. This was a fundamental rule of Pakistani policy according to Brigadier Mohammed Yousaf, who ran the ISI operation in Afghanistan between 1983 and 1989: No American was to come into contact with the mujahedeen and no American was to be involved in the distribution of arms or supplies once they arrived in Pakistan. So far as the Arabs who went to the jihad, such as Bin Laden, were concerned, there was even less contact between them and the Americans. The Arabs had their own sources of funding and support, and no need of the Americans at all.

What training was provided was provided by Pakistan and likely did include terror tactics. The Pakistani’s were no strangers to terrorist activities. They had been supporting terrorism, mainly in the Kashmir region of India, since the 1970’s[2]. The Pakistani’s directed the bulk of American-financed support to the Afghan groups that were the most extremist, the most Islamist, the most violent. These groups were reported by the Pakistani’s to also be the most effective, although those claims are questionable. The group, which received the highest percentage of aid, as well as the most support from Arab sources, was the Hizb party, which was headed by a Muslim fanatic named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was a Pakistani agent from long before the jihad began.

There were more moderate Afghan commanders available, but they were not trusted so much by Pakistan, and therefore weren’t seen as reliable by the Americans. Perhaps the biggest mistake the U.S. made in the Afghan operation was in not taking greater account of who the Pakistani’s were paying with our tax dollars. However, the ISI was seen as being more familiar with the situation “on the ground” and was allowed to run the show. If the CIA had taken a stronger hand in determining the allocation of support, it was likely that the ISI would have stopped funneling any support to the Afghans.

Lie: The CIA helped Bin Laden build an underground camp at Khost, which was used to train terrorists.

Fact: An Afghan commander built the camp at Khost in 1982, with funding from Saudi Arabia. As stated above, there were few instances of any Americans going into Afghanistan. It would be too dangerous to hand the Soviets or their supporters a propaganda victory by allowing them to capture an American.

Even if Bin Laden had been involved in building the Khost camp, as he was involved in building other camps, he would not have needed CIA help to do so. Osama had no difficulty in using equipment from his family’s construction empire to build camps, tunnel complexes, etc., in Afghanistan.

Lie: The CIA helped Bin Laden all along, and continues to help him.

Fact: Bin Laden never had any relations with Americans or American officials. Al Qaeda sources told Peter Bergen that Bin Laden was predicting conflict with the Americans from the early 1980’s.

To seriously believe that Bin Laden would willingly have ever worked with the Americans, one would have to so completely discard common sense as to believe that Bert the Sesame Street character really was an Al Qaeda operative because he has been seen in Internet photos with Bin Laden.

After the Afghan jihad ended, Bin Laden went home to Saudi Arabia, where he predicted that the Saudi kingdom would soon have to face Saddam Hussein and proposed using Arab veterans of Afghanistan to protect the land of the Prophet. When American troops arrived to drive Iraq from Kuwait and support the de facto alliance with Saudi Arabia, Osama grew quite irate. Even today, one of the continuing demands from Al Qaeda is the immediate departure from Arabia of all American troops.

As is clear from the facts, the accusations by the Left of an American role in the creation of the Al Qaeda terror threat are, at least, greatly exaggerated. While the efforts of the U.S. in Afghanistan during the 1980’s were not without some errors, they did not lead to the fostering of the threat to world peace and order that Osama Bin Laden and his followers represent. Even without American involvement in the Afghan jihad, it is at least as likely that Bin Laden would have been involved and found his “calling” as the ringleader of present day international terrorism.

Even if the accusations from the Left were true, and the U.S. took some responsibility for the “creation” of Al Qaeda, one must look at what was gained. In Afghanistan, the United States became involved in order to, as Zbigniew Brzezinski put it, “to sow s**t in [the Soviet’s] backyard.” In supporting the Afghans against the Soviets and their puppet regime, we succeeded in draining the might of the Red Army and likely bringing a faster end to the Cold War and the liberation of not only Afghanistan but the freeing of more than a billion people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

One must always consider the source in any propaganda campaign such as the one represented by these charges. Here, the left-wing, Blame America First extremists would rather apologize for the individual responsible for killing thousands of Americans and blame the victims for those murders. Reality shows another explanation.

In his 2002 letter to America (Full text: bin Laden’s ‘letter to America’) bin Laden explained that he wanted the following from the United States:

1) Become Muslims

2) Enact Sharia Law and rid yourselves of democracy and manmade laws

3) Admit your a bunch of liars

4) Stop supporting Israel, Russia, India, and the Philippines in their wars against Muslims

5) Leave Saudi Arabia

6) Stop supporting the corrupt governments in the Middle East

7) Treat us as equals and stop supporting Israel

“If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight with the Islamic Nation.”

In Bin Laden’s Fatwa from 1996, he explained how he believed the US would retreat from the Middle East after our nose was bloodied. He cites the examples of our departure from Lebanon after 241 Marines were killed and how we fled Somalia after 10 [sic] of our Soldiers were killed there.

So right there, by saying we “completely reverse” our positions, it is suggesting that the United States population become Muslims and we get rid of our Constitution in favor of Sharia Law. Arguably, we could do # 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 but those first two are kind of tough.

Do I think we could get away with just doing 3–7? Nope.

Once you show that you are willing to give in to terrorist attacks, that doesn’t make them less likely. It makes the more likely. Because you’ve shown that they work. Just like our departure from Lebanon and Somalia convinced bin Ladin that attacking the US would be a good idea.

Radical Islamists don’t just want the Western nations out of the Middle East, they want everyone to be Muslims. This isn’t some Donald Trump-ism. This is George W. claiming they hate us for our freedoms. This is the writings of one of their most popular icons who clearly spells out that the end goal is a world-wide conversion to Islam. Not hyperbole, just an ability to read what is actually being demanded.

And just to be clear, the US is not going to EVER give in on points 1 and 2. So there is not “complete” reversal. Maybe a partial reversal but that won’t be good enough.

American foreign policy *contributed* to the 9/11 attacks. Usama bin Ladin and his crew still made the decision to attack the US.

There are several factors that contributed to this:

1. US disengagement from Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal

The US’s abandonment of the Afghan people after the Soviets departed was what left a power vacuum in the country.

Because the US tried to be hands-off, it simply provided money to the Pakistan intelligence service which allowed the ISI to fund the group’s of its choice. Pakistan acted (as all nations do) in its own best interest. Recognizing India as its greatest threat, Pakistan sought to establish a loyal ally to its rear, creating strategic depth. This led them to support two groups over all others involved in the fight against the Soviets:

1. Pashtuns, who have a sizable population on both sides of the Af-Pak border and led to the creation of the Taliban
2. The religiously motivated extremists who travelled from around the world to fight in Afghanistan. It was these “Afghan Arabs” who would eventually become al Qaeda

When the US did get directly involved, such as sending advisors forward to train insurgents on the use of Stinger missiles, they focused on more diverse ethnic groups. This included the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras. These groups would become the Northern Alliance after the Soviets departed Afghanistan. To this end, the US was playing off some groups against the Pashtuns, the chosen group of Pakistan. This would set up Afghanistan for the civil war that would follow.

Once the Soviets departed, US support to the region ended. There was no effort to guide Afghanistan into a successful peace, to establish a friendly government, or to effectively disarm. Instead, the US left all of this up to the Pakistani government. Pakistan attempted to guide this post-war development but found the Afghans to be far less susceptible to their influence than when they had been fighting the Soviets.

The atrocities that followed by the warlords who sought to exploit the chaos of the post-Soviet environment, created a lawlessness and chaos that destroyed the Afghan people. Seeking peace and stability, they turned to the one group who promised a strict adherence to order, the Taliban. The Taliban fought the corruption and barbarity of the warlords and established an extremist view of their religion as a means of controlling the country. Their strict interpretation forced many NGOs, including the UN, to abandon the country during one of the worst humanitarian disasters in history.

To make up for this loss in money, the Taliban accepted bin Ladin’s request for refuge and to establish training camps throughout the country. This allowed the organization to flourish, to plan, and to organized the attacks on the US.

Had the US not abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet departure or if the US had taken a more direct role in supporting the insurgency during the fight against the Soviets, the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda is far less likely.

The US failed to take appropriate actions to counter earlier terrorist attacks

You see, 9/11 was not the first attack by Al Qaeda on the United States.

Most notably, two US embassies in Africa had been bombed in 1998 and then in 2000, the USS Cole was bombed in port in Yemen.

In the first case, the US launched a few cruise missiles at AQ camps in Afghanistan (and a factory in the Sudan) but chose not to follow up.

In the second case, it was treated straight forwardly as a criminal investigation. (There is some argument that AQ also attacked the US in 1994 when the WTC was first bombed and in 1996 when the US military barracks in Dahran, Saudi Arabi was bombed but I don’t believe either of those were conclusively shown to be AQ.)

In 1999, the US foiled one “millennium plot”, an attack on LAX. Again, this was treated as a “criminal” problem.

So what was the result of not “overreacting”? AQ struck again.

I believe one can make a strong case for US disengagement from foreign policy as being the bigger factor in the attacks than what the US was actually doing.

with contributions from BK Price