Posted by NEWS on 28/8/2004, 18:03:13 Nonfiction. By Jonathan Randal. 339 pages. $26.95. Alfred A. Knopf. Though much of the material in "Osama" is familiar from earlier books and newspaper and magazine articles, the volume does a nimble and often highly compelling job of leading the reader through the labyrinth of information and speculation about Al Qaeda and the broader jihadi movement, showing how Islamic terrorism has evolved and proliferated over the last two and a half decades, while suggesting that American missteps, ignorance and hubris often strengthened bin Laden's hand. Randal, a former Washington Post correspondent whose work in the Middle East spans the last 40 years, provides a succinct account of how the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan brought together Islamic radicals from around the world, inflamed their self-righteousness and anger, and gave them faith in their ability to bring a superpower to its knees. He also lays out reasons why the United States and Saudi Arabia at the time supported and financed the jihadis: American politicians, wanting to bleed the Soviets and even the score for Vietnam; the Saudi ruling family, wanting to ratify its fundamentalist bona fides, gain forgiveness for its own profligacy, and rid the kingdom of young troublemakers. At the same time Randal chronicles bin Laden's combat experiences as an anti-Soviet jihadi (which would establish his leadership abilities and mythic aura for the first time) and discusses how his subsequent experiences back home in Saudi Arabia and later in Sudan further radicalized him and shaped the direction and ambitions of Al Qaeda. Much space is devoted in this book to examining the unintended consequences of decisions made by the United States over the last 25 years concerning Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Indeed, a persistent theme in the volume concerns what Randal sees as the United States' inadvertent role in helping "Osama do his work," unwittingly playing into the terrorist's hands. It is a development that Randal attributes in part to bad luck and bad timing, and in part to America's lack of "knowledge (as opposed to narrow 'intelligence') about much of the world." Randal is equally scathing about policy moves made by the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He argues that the Clinton administration miscalculated in 1996 in pressing Sudan for the ouster of bin Laden: His move from Khartoum (where he could have been kept under surveillance) to the unmapped reaches of Afghanistan meant that "the Clinton administration lost any reasonable hope of keeping tabs on him again." Also damaging, in Randal's opinion, was the Clinton administration's decision to retaliate for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by launching cruise missiles at an Afghan training camp run by Al Qaeda and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. Such high-tech attacks, Randal writes, fueled "the growing fury against the West, especially the United States, for not 'fighting fair'" - that is, for not risking the dangers of ground combat while subjecting the enemy to collateral damage. He contends that the missile attacks "reignited worry among Muslims that the United States is prone to overkill," and that bin Laden's seemingly miraculous survival convinced many that "Allah had intervened to spare" his life. Just as the United States' decision to keep troops on Saudi Arabian soil in the wake of the Gulf War stoked Muslim resentment of America, Randal says, so did many of the policies of the second Bush White House exacerbate relations with the Arab world: from Bush's strong expressions of support for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel (which, Randal writes, "offended Muslims everywhere and especially Arab governments, who were fearful such tactics would only radicalize their citizens and make Osama more popular and powerful") to his decision to wage a pre-emptive war against Iraq. Randal also argues that by failing "to commit American ground troops immediately to the battle of Tora Bora" in Afghanistan, the United States allowed many Al Qaeda followers and possibly Osama bin Laden himself to slip away. Meanwhile, Randal argues, post-Saddam Iraq "provided a new battlefield for jihadis." It was an opening, he adds, that "the Bush administration served them on a silver plate."
Osama: Making of a Terrorist
Reviewed by Michiko Kakutani NYT
Jonathan Randal's book is less a biography of Al Qaeda's mastermind Osama bin Laden than a history of the contemporary jihadi movement, from its emergence in Afghanistan during the 1980s war against the Soviet Union, through the planning of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, to its metastasis in the wake of the Iraq war.
The New York Times
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