In short, if you’re against the Straussian neocon invasion and occupation of Iraq, you obviously agree with Osama bin Laden Goldstein, the one-time central character in America’s corporate media-driven two minute hate session (Osama was subsequently replaced by another, more ominous and vicious Emmanuel Goldstein-like character, who is also dead, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). Bush long ago declared Osama irrelevant (even though he is the central villain-patsy of nine eleven) but the Straussian neocons may want to bring him back, not so much for nostalgia purposes as the fact Bush needs an Arab caitiff now that he is down on his luck and poll numbers).

Our duplicitous corporate media, as well, considers the reemergence of Osama as a perfect opportunity to wax nostalgic and clutter newspapers and websites with Osama trivia, of a sort. For instance, the “liberal” American Prospect dedicated a page to Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden, one of a select few white men allowed to interview Osama. In an interview conducted by Aziz Huq, Bergen tells us it is

impossible to understand al-Qaeda without the personal stories of Osama bin Laden and [his deputy] Ayman al-Zawahiri. And it’s not as if either of them has now disappeared from history: Not only did bin Laden affect history with the 9-11 attacks, but he continues to influence it. Through his cassettes and videotapes, he is playing an active role in al-Qaeda. You have bin Laden on tape ordering the attack on Coalition partners of the United States, and then you see the Madrid bombing. Al-Zawahiri called for attacks on President Pervez Musharraf [of Pakistan], and some time after, they were carried out.

Of course, all of this is little more than drivel, since we have absolutely no evidence Osama had anything to do with the events of nine eleven, or did he have anything to do with “ordering the attack on Coalition partners of the United States” or for that matter the Madrid bombings, the latter obviously the work of the Spanish Unidad Central de Operaciones and directly linked to Juan Jesus Sanchez Manzano, the head of Tedax, Spain’s Civil Guard bomb squad (see Madrid 3/11 train bombing suspects linked to Spanish Security Services, a fact of course ignored by the corporate media in the United States). In fact, Osama cannot be linked to any terrorist event specifically, except of course the terrorists events directed by the CIA against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Peter Bergen denies this, essentially portraying Osama as a bumbling naïf who overcame his awkwardness to become a world class terrorist:

The picture of the young Osama is someone who was hyperreligious, even by the standards of 1970s Saudi Arabia. But he was also very polite, mild-mannered, and shy. And by all accounts, a selfless individual. He was hard working too, although he didn’t graduate from university. So how did he come to become the leader of the world’s leading terrorist organization? The short answer is Afghanistan, where he went to fight jihad against the Soviet occupation. At first, people didn’t notice him. He had little charisma or leadership skills. But as he fought the Soviets through the 1980s, he became more confident, and his personal bravery was tested. He then decided to set up his own organization, even though his friends and relatives told him not to: It’s suicide, not jihad, they argued. But it’s critical that he ignored this advice and chose to set out on his own.

Sort of an Islamic version of a Horatio Alger story, minus the rags-to-riches histrionics. Of course, all of this is nonsense—Osama was one of thousands of Muslims (to be exact, 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East; see Rashid, linked below) brought to Afghanistan by the CIA and its client, the Pakistan ISI, with plenty of funding provided by Saudi Arabia. It was not an environment amenable for a religious wallflower to “set out on his own” and carve out a terrorist empire, not without spook micromanagement—with an influx of CIA cash anywhere between 6 and 20 billion dollars—and control freaks such as Pakistan’s General Zia ul-Haq pulling strings.

Bergen continues his fairy tale:

Al-Qaeda wasn’t an outgrowth of Adbullah Azaam’s “Office of Services,” as has been suggested elsewhere. Al-Qaeda grew in opposition to Azzam’s organization, not out of it. Azzam’s organization had been becoming something like an NGO, which provided education and the like. Bin Laden didn’t want to do that. He wanted to fight the Soviets by forming his own group.

If Azzam’s “Office of Services” (or Maktab Khadamat al-Mujahidin al-Arab) was “something like” an NGO, then the Mafia is akin to the Salvation Army. Even conventional sources regard Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK) as a CIA and ISI front organization. Moreover, MAK served as the offices of the World Muslim League and the Muslim Brotherhood in the northern Pakistan city of Peshawar, according to the veteran Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, who wrote a definitive book on the Taliban and knows more about the political and religious dynamics of Afghanistan than the New America Foundation-bound Peter Bergen ever will (it should be noted that the New America Foundation is funded lavishly by the Pew Charitable Trusts in classic leftist gatekeeper fashion; see Ken Bell’s How Liberal Foundations Gutted the First Amendment, Suckered Congress, the President & the Courts In Order To Make You Shut Up).

“During the 1980s, Azam had forged close links with [Gulbuddin] Hikmetyar and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the Afghan Islamic scholar, whom the Saudis had sent to Peshawar to promote Wahabbism. Saudi funds flowed to Azam and the Makhtab at Khidmat or Services Center, which he created in 1984 to service the new recruits and receive donations from Islamic charities. Donations from Saudi Intelligence, the Saudi Red Crescent, the World Muslim League and private donations from Saudi princes and mosques were channelled through the Makhtab,” explains Rashid. It should be noted that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was a CIA favorite and, according to Rashid, received fully 90% the CIA-supplied funds doled out by the ISI. In customary fashion, the CIA fancied Hekmatyar and other of his ilk for their brutal viciousness.

Azzam’s connection to the Muslim Brotherhood is a significant factor, considering the Muslim organization was long ago penetrated and made to jump through hoops for the sake of MI6 and later the CIA. “According to CIA agent Miles Copeland, the Americans began looking for a Muslim Billy Graham around 1955,” writes the Palestinian-born journalist and author Said K. Aburish. “When finding or creating a Muslim Billy Graham proved elusive, the CIA began to cooperate with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim mass organization founded in Egypt but with followers throughout the Arab Middle East.” In 1957, the CIA and MI6 collaborated to use the Muslim Brotherhood in an effort to destabilize Syria and assassinate its nationalist leaders (see Jean Shaoul, CIA-MI6 planned to assassinate Syrian leaders in 1957), a plan following the successful CIA-instigated overthrow of the popular and democratically elected Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh by a few years.

As is often the case with useful but ultimately disposable Muslim fanatics, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam was assassinated on November 24, 1989 and Osama bin Laden took his place. Indeed, regardless of Peter Bergen’s assertion, “al-Qaeda” may be considered an outgrowth of MAK—or more precisely, an heir apparent as engineered by the CIA, ISI, and Saudi intelligence. MAK had served its purpose as a recruiter and proselytizer of Wahhabi fanaticism in Afghanistan and after the Soviets were ejected the services of Azzam were no longer required (and he was likely considered a danger to the next phase—the spawning and unleashing of “al-Qaeda” in the Balkans and Chechnya).

Like Azzam, Osama bin Laden served his purpose, but obviously his spook puppet masters are not finished with his legacy and intend to squeeze more mileage out him, even as he rests in an unmarked grave (in standard Wahhabi tradition), as reported by the al-Wafd newspaper on December 26, 2001. Osama is performing, as the Guardian reports, “another audacious media and political coup of a high order,” and none too soon as the diabolical Straussian neocon stratagem of total war against Islamic society and culture limps along, in need of a momentary infusion between the devastation of Iraq and the impending molestation of Iran. As well, in the convoluted machinations of the “war on terror,” the latest Osama communiqué may signal a ramping up for another “terror event” here in America, thus providing a pretext for the mass murder and crimes against humanity that lie ahead and, as well, making sure the ever-malleable American populace is in the right frame of mind.