What Would Osama Think? Special to Site

What Would Osama Think? Dateline: An undisclosed location somewhere on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. It's been more than two years since Mohammed Atta and my eighteen other holy warriors inflicted so much damage on the Crusaders in New York and Washington, so it's time to take stock of how my jihad is going. Certainly there have been losses: my friend and military commander Mohammed Atef was martyred in Afghanistan and many of my top aides have been captured or killed since 9/11. I was hoping that we?d pull the Americans into a large scale ground invasion of Afghanistan so that we could fight a protracted guerrilla war against them. Instead we fought mostly the Afghan apostates of the Northern Alliance. When we lost the war in Afghanistan we lost our bases and training camps. Also I was hoping to provoke a clash of civilizations. It hasn't happened...yet. Since 9/11 we haven?t been able to pull off any attacks in the United States, or even in Europe, (unless you count Istanbul as part of Europe)and thousands of my supporters have been arrested around the world. That's the bad news. Now for some good news. Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security advisor, has written that my "real twin Towers" are Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. And he is absolutely right. If we control Saudi Arabia we will own the most sacred places in Islam that sit on top of the world's largest oil reserves. If we control Pakistan we control one hundred and forty million subjects and we have access to nuclear weapons. Indeed, my primary fight is not with the United States. We can never defeat the Crusaders; attacking them is only a means to an end. My fight is first of all with the corrupt, infidel House of Saud. Putting fifteen Saudi holy warriors on the hijacked planes was a masterstroke because it has disrupted the alliance between the Americans and the Saudis. And things are going well for me in Saudi Arabia. The United States has withdrawn its occupation troops; my followers have killed dozens of people in Riyadh last year showing that the Saudis do not have control of their own capital. We have even set up training camps in remote parts of the country and have many sympathizers in the Saudi security forces. Indeed, if there was an election in Saudi Arabia tomorrow I'd probably win. Not that I believe in elections. Things are also not going badly in Pakistan either. Two months ago, shortly after my deputy Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri called for attacks on the traitorous General Pervez Musharraf our brothers in Pakistan mounted two assassination attempts against him and nearly killed him. Also our friends in Pakistan's religious parties have done well at the voting booth in the past year or so. Indeed they control the two provinces we care most about, the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, the provinces that are on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. And we have been cheered by the news of the leakiness in Pakistan's nuclear establishment. Three years ago we met with recently retired senior Pakistani nuclear scientists in Afghanistan and we discussed weapons of mass destruction. We hope that our followers can take advantage of the new weaknesses revealed in Pakistan's nuclear institutions. Finally, if I believed in Christmas President Bush could have given me no finer Christmas present than the Iraq war. It's been a real shot in the arm for my entire organization and the larger ideological movement that I am spearheading. And the US army got rid of that secular socialist Saddam whom we have hated for many years, allowing the resurgence of the true Sunni religion in the heartland of the Middle East. My followers have been killing coalition forces and Iraqi collaborators in large numbers and they seem to be getting better at it. And the Iraq war has had another unexpected dividend for me. When Muslims are polled in countries like Indonesia, Turkey, Jordan and Morocco and asked: Who do you have more confidence in-- President Bush or yours truly? Overwhelming they vote for me. So it's a mixed picture of losses and successes. But we will not give up our fight and we are patient. It took us more than three years to plan the 9/11 attacks. America will feel our wrath again. We hear that the Pakistanis and Americans are preparing a spring offensive against us. This does not disturb us as we are well hidden, and in any case would welcome martyrdom in this glorious jihad. Most importantly, God is on our side.