Sara S
02-15-2011, 07:49 AM
from delancyplace.com
In today's excerpt - in October of 2000, members of al-Qaeda blew up the USS Cole
in the Yemeni port of Aden. Al-Qaeda's members were recruited from among the displaced
and alienated, and its operations were equal parts brilliance and bungling. Like
al-Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Center towers a year later, its purpose was
to raise the profile of the group, to boost its perennially flagging member recruitment,
and to provoke a disproportionate response by the U.S. But the U.S. did not respond,
leaving Bin Laden angry and disappointed. And yet there were benefits - the cash
that poured in because of the success of the mission left the Taliban less uneasy
about tolerating al-Qaeda's presence in their country:
"What the recruits [of al-Qaeda] tended to have in common - besides their
urbanity, their cosmopolitan backgrounds, their education, their facility with languages,
and their computer skills - was displacement. Most who joined the jihad did so in
a country other than the one in which they were reared. They were Algerians living
in expatriate enclaves in France, Moroccans in Spain, or Yemenis in Saudi Arabia.
Despite their accomplishments, they had little standing in the host societies where
they lived. Like Sayyid Qutb [a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood], they defined
themselves as radical Muslims while living in the West. The Pakistani in London
found that he was neither authentically British nor authentically Pakistani; and
this feeling of marginality was just as true for Lebanese in Kuwait as it was for
Egyptians in Brooklyn. Alone, alienated, and often far from his family, the exile
turned to the mosque, where he found companionship and the consolation of religion.
Islam provided the element of commonality It was more than a faith - it was an identity.
...
"Al-Qaeda's ... approach had worked well in the embassy bombings, but the operations
scheduled for the millennium had gone awry. One had been a comical fiasco: the attempted
bombing of USS The Sullivans at the end of Ramadan, when the fiberglass skiff that
was supposed to attack the destroyer had foundered so ignominiously in Aden's harbor.
Bin Laden ... wanted them to sink an American warship. When [the first attempt at]
that failed, bin Laden demanded that the two suicide bombers be replaced.
"Aden perches on the slope of a former volcano, the collapsed cone of which forms
one of the finest deepwater ports in the world. The name derives from the belief
that this is the site of the Garden of Eden. ... Docked at a fueling buoy was the
USS Cole, a billion-dollar guided-missile destroyer. Using advanced stealth technology,
the sleek warship was designed to be less visible to radar, but it was starkly evident
in the Aden harbor: more than five hundred feet long, displacing 8,300 tons, with
its swirling antenna scanning the skies for any foreseeable threat. ...
On October 12, 2000, at 11:15 a.m., as the Cole was preparing to get under way,
a fiberglass fishing boat approached its massive prey. Some of the sailors were
standing watch, but many were belowdecks or waiting in the chow line. Two men brought
the tiny skiff to a halt amidships, smiled and waved, then stood at attention. The
symbolism and the asymmetry of this moment were exactly what bin Laden had dreamed
of. 'The destroyer represented the capital of the West,' he said, 'and the small
boat represented Mohammed.' The shock wave of the enormous explosion in the harbor
knocked over cars onshore. Two miles away, people thought there was an earthquake.
In a taxi in the city, the concussion shook Fahd al-Quso, a member of the al-Qaeda
support team who was running late; he was supposed to have videotaped the attack,
but he slept through the page on his phone that would have notified him to set up
the camera. The blast opened a hole forty feet by forty feet in the port side of
the ship, tearing apart sailors who were waiting for lunch. Seventeen of them perished,
and thirty-nine were wounded. ...
"The strike on the Cole had been a great victory for bin Laden. Al-Qaeda camps in
Afghanistan filled with new recruits, and contributors from the Gulf states arrived
carrying Samsonite suitcases filled with petrodollars, as in the glory days of the
Afghan jihad. At last there was money to spread around. The Taliban leadership,
which was still divided about bin Laden's presence in the country, became more compliant
when cash appeared, despite the threat of sanctions and reprisals. Bin Laden separated
his senior leaders - Abu Hafs to
another location in Kandahar, and Zawahiri to Kabul - so that the anticipated American
response would not kill the al-Qaeda leadership all at once.
"But there was no American response. The country was in the middle of a presidential
election, and Clinton was trying to burnish his legacy by securing a peace agreement
between Israel and Palestine. The Cole bombing had occurred just as the talks were
falling apart. Clinton maintains that, despite the awkward political timing, his
administration came close to launching another missile attack against bin Laden
that October, but at the last minute the CIA recommended calling it off because
his presence at the site was not completely certain. Bin Laden was angry and disappointed.
He hoped to lure America into the same trap the Soviets had fallen into: Afghanistan.
His strategy was to continually attack until the U.S. forces invaded; then the
mujahideen would swarm upon them and bleed them until the entire American empire
fell from its wounds."
Author: Lawrence Wright
Title: The Looming Tower
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (hardcover)
Date: Copyright 2006 by Lawrence Wright
Pages: 304-305, 318-320, 331
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
by Lawrence Wright by Vintage
Paperback ~ Release Date: 2007-08-21
In today's excerpt - in October of 2000, members of al-Qaeda blew up the USS Cole
in the Yemeni port of Aden. Al-Qaeda's members were recruited from among the displaced
and alienated, and its operations were equal parts brilliance and bungling. Like
al-Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Center towers a year later, its purpose was
to raise the profile of the group, to boost its perennially flagging member recruitment,
and to provoke a disproportionate response by the U.S. But the U.S. did not respond,
leaving Bin Laden angry and disappointed. And yet there were benefits - the cash
that poured in because of the success of the mission left the Taliban less uneasy
about tolerating al-Qaeda's presence in their country:
"What the recruits [of al-Qaeda] tended to have in common - besides their
urbanity, their cosmopolitan backgrounds, their education, their facility with languages,
and their computer skills - was displacement. Most who joined the jihad did so in
a country other than the one in which they were reared. They were Algerians living
in expatriate enclaves in France, Moroccans in Spain, or Yemenis in Saudi Arabia.
Despite their accomplishments, they had little standing in the host societies where
they lived. Like Sayyid Qutb [a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood], they defined
themselves as radical Muslims while living in the West. The Pakistani in London
found that he was neither authentically British nor authentically Pakistani; and
this feeling of marginality was just as true for Lebanese in Kuwait as it was for
Egyptians in Brooklyn. Alone, alienated, and often far from his family, the exile
turned to the mosque, where he found companionship and the consolation of religion.
Islam provided the element of commonality It was more than a faith - it was an identity.
...
"Al-Qaeda's ... approach had worked well in the embassy bombings, but the operations
scheduled for the millennium had gone awry. One had been a comical fiasco: the attempted
bombing of USS The Sullivans at the end of Ramadan, when the fiberglass skiff that
was supposed to attack the destroyer had foundered so ignominiously in Aden's harbor.
Bin Laden ... wanted them to sink an American warship. When [the first attempt at]
that failed, bin Laden demanded that the two suicide bombers be replaced.
"Aden perches on the slope of a former volcano, the collapsed cone of which forms
one of the finest deepwater ports in the world. The name derives from the belief
that this is the site of the Garden of Eden. ... Docked at a fueling buoy was the
USS Cole, a billion-dollar guided-missile destroyer. Using advanced stealth technology,
the sleek warship was designed to be less visible to radar, but it was starkly evident
in the Aden harbor: more than five hundred feet long, displacing 8,300 tons, with
its swirling antenna scanning the skies for any foreseeable threat. ...
On October 12, 2000, at 11:15 a.m., as the Cole was preparing to get under way,
a fiberglass fishing boat approached its massive prey. Some of the sailors were
standing watch, but many were belowdecks or waiting in the chow line. Two men brought
the tiny skiff to a halt amidships, smiled and waved, then stood at attention. The
symbolism and the asymmetry of this moment were exactly what bin Laden had dreamed
of. 'The destroyer represented the capital of the West,' he said, 'and the small
boat represented Mohammed.' The shock wave of the enormous explosion in the harbor
knocked over cars onshore. Two miles away, people thought there was an earthquake.
In a taxi in the city, the concussion shook Fahd al-Quso, a member of the al-Qaeda
support team who was running late; he was supposed to have videotaped the attack,
but he slept through the page on his phone that would have notified him to set up
the camera. The blast opened a hole forty feet by forty feet in the port side of
the ship, tearing apart sailors who were waiting for lunch. Seventeen of them perished,
and thirty-nine were wounded. ...
"The strike on the Cole had been a great victory for bin Laden. Al-Qaeda camps in
Afghanistan filled with new recruits, and contributors from the Gulf states arrived
carrying Samsonite suitcases filled with petrodollars, as in the glory days of the
Afghan jihad. At last there was money to spread around. The Taliban leadership,
which was still divided about bin Laden's presence in the country, became more compliant
when cash appeared, despite the threat of sanctions and reprisals. Bin Laden separated
his senior leaders - Abu Hafs to
another location in Kandahar, and Zawahiri to Kabul - so that the anticipated American
response would not kill the al-Qaeda leadership all at once.
"But there was no American response. The country was in the middle of a presidential
election, and Clinton was trying to burnish his legacy by securing a peace agreement
between Israel and Palestine. The Cole bombing had occurred just as the talks were
falling apart. Clinton maintains that, despite the awkward political timing, his
administration came close to launching another missile attack against bin Laden
that October, but at the last minute the CIA recommended calling it off because
his presence at the site was not completely certain. Bin Laden was angry and disappointed.
He hoped to lure America into the same trap the Soviets had fallen into: Afghanistan.
His strategy was to continually attack until the U.S. forces invaded; then the
mujahideen would swarm upon them and bleed them until the entire American empire
fell from its wounds."
Author: Lawrence Wright
Title: The Looming Tower
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (hardcover)
Date: Copyright 2006 by Lawrence Wright
Pages: 304-305, 318-320, 331
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
by Lawrence Wright by Vintage
Paperback ~ Release Date: 2007-08-21