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Was bin Laden somehow involved in the attack? I am sure beyond a reasonable doubt that he was. Was he the "terrorist mastermind" behind the attack? Unlikely. I have seen no evidence that there was any mastermind at all. No Chain of Command Westerners
naturally have a western view of military matters. Most think
in terms of an army with a chain of command running from privates,
corporals and sergeants to four and five-star generals. The Underground Flow of Resources On every
continent there are millions of people who hate and fear the
US government and would like to see it wiped off the face of
the earth. Each of these people has something he can contribute
to the cause.
Some of these organizations are secret underground networks. Others are legitimate charities that do good work. Few of the people working for the charities have any idea that a portion of the money is siphoned off to finance the war against Washington. Each collection organization has one or more people we can call a disbursement officer who decides where the resources will go. When thinking of the disbursement officer, think of a loan officer at a bank. The guerrillas who do the attacks are not organized into a military hierarchy, they are members of secret cells. Each cell has anywhere from one to a dozen people, rarely more than two dozen, and little connection with other cells. In other words, each cell is a group of free-lance guerrillas. Members of one cell may be acquainted with members of two or three other cells, but no one knows how many cells there are or where they are, except to say they are on every continent, in many cases blended with the indigenous populations. Here is an example of how an attack is put together. How Attacks are Planned One evening,
the leader of cell number 127 is in Hong Kong having a beer with
two friends he has known from childhood. The friends are leaders
of cells 946 and 1,289.
He asks how much money will be needed. Then he inquires about the experience and training of the guerrillas. What is their track record of successes and failures? Do they have all the necessary skills? If the plan looks good except for minor details - perhaps the guerrillas lack a skill or a weapon that would be helpful - the disbursement officer may know someone who might be willing to help, and he may ask this person if he would like to join the operation. If the disbursement officer has been in the business a long time, he may know several people who would be interested in joining, assuming they have not been killed. This, incidentally, points to a major strength of this form of organization. When the West kills a cell leader, it severs the cell's connection with other cells and loses the ability to find them. So, killing a "terrorist" increases the survivability of the overall network. Once the plan looks doable, the disbursement officer writes the check. Summarizing what we have covered so far, we are talking about thousands of streams of money, information, weapons and other resources flowing from all over the world to hundreds of cells, none of whom know much about each other. Now lets look at bin Laden. A Highly Capable Leader All credible
reports I have seen indicate that bin Laden is a highly capable
mountain guerrilla commander. If he were in the US Army, he would
be a captain or major in the Green Berets. A New Form of WarfareIn the October 1996 Early Warning Report I explained that the intelligence of an organization is a different thing entirely than the intelligence of its members. A group of geniuses who are poorly organized will produce little of value, while a group of ordinary people brilliantly organized can produce miracles.
In adopting a market type of organization rather than a conventional military or government hierarchy, the Islamic groups fighting Washington have advanced warfare to a whole new level. This is like what happened in World War II. In 1940, the French felt safe behind their Maginot Line. German generals combined tanks and aircraft in a "blitzkrieg" (lightning war) that simply bypassed the Maginot Line. In my opinion, this market style warfare used by Islamic groups is tantamount to the invention of the blitzkrieg, and not for one minute do I believe that bin Laden was the originator. I believe this style of organization has been under development for at least a century, and the original mastermind or masterminds, if there ever were any, were probably all dead of old age by 1970. Like any other market economy, the whole thing runs without any central direction at all. It is organized not by commands from a central authority but by contracts between individuals. Bin Laden's probable role in the September 11th attack reminds me of Lee Harvey Oswald in the JFK assassination, and Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing. Was he involved in some way? Yes. Was he the mastermind? Highly unlikely because, in the case of September 11th, there was no mastermind. This war is the Maginot Line vs. the blitzkrieg, and I cannot see any reason to believe it will end during our lifetimes.
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