Osama bin Laden

Like Ronald Reagan, bin Laden thinks that he brought down the Soviet Union. By the time the Soviet-Afghan war is over, he believes that his force of Arab fighters played the decisive role. With the intoxication of this success, Al-Qaeda is formed in 1988 to globalize jihad; its goals are to remove Western influence from Muslim countries and create a new unified Islamic state to govern all Muslims. At the time, the United States is an ally. Hatred of the U.S. is enflamed by the first Gulf War and the introduction of American airbases and troops into Saudi Arabia. Within a few years, bin Laden focuses Al-Qaeda to fight “the far enemy,” the United States instead of individual Arab governments. In 1998, bin Laden issues a fatwa in which he declares, “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it…”

During the late 1980s, the black wool hats of the Afghani Mujahideen were popular in New York. I had one. I thought it was cool. I was on the side of any poor nation fighting an imperialist oppressor. I wasn’t aware that my government was pouring billions of dollars into the conflict. I had no idea that at the al-Farooq Mosque on Atlantic Avenue, four blocks from where I now take my daughter for Chinese classes, Omar Abdel-Rahman preached violence towards the West and advocated killing Americans. I certainly had never heard of Osama bin Laden. However, I seem to have some things in common with several of bin Laden’s wives. In addition to his first wife, he married two university lecturers who would have been classified as spinsters. Myself a college professor, I didn’t marry until I was 43. Umm Hamza, a professor of child psychology, and Umm Khaled, teacher of Arabic grammar, commuted to Saudi Arabia to continue teaching after bin Laden moved the family to Sudan.