CNN Puts bin Laden into Perspective

I consider Peter Bergen to be Western civilization's foremost authority on Osama bin Laden ...

If he's involved in a documentary on terrorism's figurehead, then that's a program worth watching. So, as Lynn Elber of the Associated Press reports, CNN's upcoming special on this topic is recommended viewing:

To terrorism expert Peter Bergen, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida are hiding in plain sight as the force behind the alleged plot against trans-Atlantic airliners.

Bin Laden's tenacious influence five years after Sept. 11 is why, Bergen said, he felt compelled to write about him and to participate in "In the Footsteps of bin Laden," a new CNN documentary based in part on Bergen's book, "The Osama bin Laden I Know."

The two-hour special, reported by CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, airs on Wed 23 Aug.

While U.S. and British officials investigate links between the airplane bombing plot and al-Qaida, Bergen already sees a clear connection.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri, have released dozens of video and audio tapes that Bergen characterizes as "the most widely distributed political statements in history."

"Hundreds of millions of people see them or hear them or read about them ... to people who are part of the jihadist movement, these words are akin to a religious order," Bergen said. When bin Laden calls for assaults on members of the Iraq war coalition, "people react to that in Madrid and London."

As he dodges capture (he's believed to be in Pakistan), bin Laden is not in operational control of al-Qaida but "he doesn't need to be because these tapes get the message out."

Bin Laden's organization may have done more than inspire last week's failed jetliner plot: It's "a classic al-Qaida operation," said Bergen, who teaches at Johns Hopkins University and is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

CNN's film constructs an account of bin Laden's life based on dozens of worldwide interviews, 21 of which were with people who had direct contact with him, including childhood friends, university classmates, fellow jihadists and a former English teacher.

In trying to comprehend the "fatal switch" that turned bin Laden from what Amanpour calls a "comfortably off, establishment person" into an extremist, the CNN documentary sidesteps armchair analysis.

There are details that carry the potential for such scrutiny: bin Laden, the son of the late Saudi construction magnate Mohammed bin Laden, lived apart from the sprawling family that included his father's 22 wives and 54 sons and daughters.

But the CNN special deliberately avoids theorizing about bin Laden's personal demons, Amanpour said.

The facts themselves paint a striking picture, Amanpour said. One particular element that came into focus was how bin Laden used international media to clearly communicate his plan of attack.

Bergen, who in 1997 obtained the first TV interview with bin Laden for CNN, found two elements of his research on the man particularly intriguing and unexpected.

One was the sharp criticism from within al-Qaida that bin Laden faced after Sept. 11, initially seen as a tactical error. Bin Laden thought it would drive the United States to withdraw from Mideast involvement; instead, it fueled attacks on his group and Afghanistan's Taliban.

(The Iraq war, which Bergen said reinvigorated al-Qaida and its terrorist efforts, ultimately reversed its attitude toward the attack on America.)

Bergen also was struck by another detail about bin Laden. He named a daughter Safia, after a woman from the prophet Muhammad's time who was known for killing Jews.

"Just the kind of mental state of calling your infant daughter" after such a figure is striking, Bergen said. "I think that gets inside that he's a really rabid anti-Semite."