Osama Bin Laden is shaping up as the likely mastermind for the World Trade Centre atrocity.

whether he planned it this way or not, Osama, it is believed is a product of the war in afghanistan, trained by those people he is now killing.

He also wants to wipe out the hereditary government in Saudi Arabia.

What ever happened to Bush Snr's promises of democracy in Kuwait? Oops, ruling family reinstated.

The United States government may have finally done something even more stupid than arming Saddam Hussein, but the way things are going, I doubt it.

I can't go & watch my TV. All I see are dead people.

Got this from the Smoking Gun. Apparently, he wants to wipe out all of the Arab governments, which he sees as corrupted by Western influences and money.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/binladen1.shtml

"whether he planned it this way or not, Osama, it is believed is a product of the war in afghanistan, trained by those people he is now killing."

Hardly. He's the son of a Saudi billionaire. He turned against the Saudi gov't when it became part of the Desert Storm coalition. He went into exile in Afghanistan only after the Taliban had assumed rule there in the 1990s, several years after the Soviet-Afghanistan war had ended. Bin Laden is financed largely by his estimated $250 million inheritance. Certainly his followers and the Taliban have access to US, as well as Soviet, weapons left over from that war, but Bin Laden obviously has the means to acquire whatever he feels he needs. And its worth noting that the weapons of mass murder this week were knives and civilian aircraft.

There is some truth to the idea that we created the monster, in that we did indeed arm and encourage the people who threw out the Soviets from Afganistan, and who subsequently took over running that hell hole. In the Reagan years we armed anyone who could say "I hate commies," whether Contras, death squads, or mujahedin. The result is, in the case of Afganistan, a bunch of zealots who hate us armed to the teeth.

"The result is, in the case of Afganistan, a bunch of zealots who hate us armed to the teeth."

Doubtless, but I was just referring to the statement that Bin Laden was a U.S. creation of the Soviet-Afghan war. It's true that he financed the purchase of a lot of U.S. arms by the mujahedin, but his particular animosity for the U.S. comes from our presence in Saudi Arabia, which he regards as a violation of holy land, not Afghanistan.

Also, although it's true that we supplied arms to Afghan rebels indiscriminately as long they were anti-Soviet, Pakistan has always been the Taliban's particular supporter. Given our "friendly" relationship with Pakistan (at least in relation to the other nations in the area), this is going to create a really ticklish situation assuming we have to take on the Taliban to get at Bin Laden's organization. Pakistan is obviously aware of this. Note their public message of support for the U.S. They obviously don't want to push the U.S. over to India's side in THAT disupte. But will they back up their rhetoric?

I think ultimately the Pakistanis have to know that earning the enmity of the US, plus that of India is a no win situation. They aren't stupid. Stubborn, rash sometimes, but not stupid I don't think. If push comes to shove, do they really like the Taliban? Hell no. Do they fear them? A bit. Will there be any Taliban left after a while? Probably not.

We seem to have a record of supplying people with weapons and training who later turn around and use them against us. Hussein. Ho Chi Men. bin Laden. Castro.

Actually, it seems Bin Laden actually did participate in the fighting in the 80's in Afghanistan. Initially he hung out in Pakistan at the camps (our camps) and helped supply arms but he was eventually let in on actual battles against the Soviets. This is supposedly the reason that The Taliban feels 'honorbound' to host him.

That, of course, and the fact he's popular with potential recruits for their internal civil war and capable of funding it.

Well, at least Ho Chi Minh at first was willing to cooperate with us :-). We were the ones who walked away from him, not the other way around. But yeah, we do have a miserable track record, don't we?

An excellent article about Bin Laden for anyone curious. In fact, just got to www.slate.com today and read everything there.

http://slate.msn.com/Assessment/01-09-13/Assessment.asp

As my mother used to say "I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it." I think she was joking.