The official story that seems to be shaping is that Osama bin Laden is, in ways yet to be clarified, behind the attacks. Personally I find this very hard to believe. I believe that if he were asked, he would lend his support to the attack, but I think it is beyond his cognitive and financial capabilities. The attacks that are possibly linked to him are small and use vehicles to transport bombs. Also, his targets have been in regions close to his base and in countries that have had past acts of terrorism. Making the leap from this kind of terrorism to multi-city attacks that took months to recruit, plan, and execute including infiltrating two airlines and three airports simultaneously, all while staying under US Intelligence radar is, to me, too far for one man to go. Like all criminals he has a Modus Operandi, including scope and scale of operation, and he does not deviate from it. This was an attack sponsored by a country using its own intelligence operations that had knowledge of the US's operations. The soldiers may have come from bin Laden's circle, but they were recruited into a different army to fight a different kind of war. Hunt him down for the sake of the headlines if you wish, but there is something far more sinister at work here than a lunatic living in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan planning his next car-bomb attack. Make no mistake that it was a country, a current or former enemy of the US, that planned this attack using mercenaries from the comparably petty forms of past terrorism.
- posted by levinson @ 9/13/2001 08:05:00 AM