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I have learned more about what kind of person Osama bin Laden is by reading Growing Up bin Laden (St. Martin's Press, 2009). In this fascinating book one of his wives and one of his sons tell about living with him.
Najwa bin Laden, Osama's first wife, and Omar bin Laden, Osama's fourth son, give intimate details of family life, describe Osama's personality and temperament, tell both harrowing and humorous stories, and give insight into his religious fervor. Osama bin Laden has five wives (all at once) and 20 children by those wives.
We probably don't even want to think of Osama bin Laden as a human being with feelings and a family and sincere beliefs. But he is. He is also a terribly misguided and destructive person. Thinking of him only as 'the enemy' or the devil incarnate doesn't give a real picture of the man.
Religion can be a means of love or hate. Unfortunately, Osama's understanding of God has led him to use his religion as a weapon to destroy life.
I heard a respected minister a couple of years ago give the insight that "Islam is a young religion." Which means that Islam has not had time to mature and come to accept the benefits of a secular society as has Judaism and Christianity. That made sense to me. Religions that maintain a complete separation from the secular end up being violent or irrelevant. The Shakers became irrelevant; Islamic extremists have become violent. Islamic terrorists have the mindset that sees secularity as a threat to the meaning of their existence. They demand theocracy or nothing.
The genius of America is its acceptance of secularity as a necessary guard against religious fanaticism that takes the form of violence. The 'wall of separation' which Jefferson wrote about is part of the wisdom of our founders.
The one passage that really bothered me in this book is a conversation between Osama and his son Omar. Omar had by this time come to a different mindset than his father. And with audacity he questions Osama's vision of violence toward the West. Here is part of Osama's response:
First we obliterate America. By that I don't mean militarily. We can destroy America from within by making it economically weak, until its markets collapse. When that happens, they will have no interest in supplying Israel with arms, for they will not have extra funds to do so. (p. 177)
The United States is militarily the most powerful in the world. And I imagine it always will be. But I would not be surprised if our nation implodes due to economic weakness. We went into Iraq and wasted billions of dollars. We were left with a huge deficit and domestic needs unmet. That, along with the greed of corporations and banks, has left us a weaker country. Capitalism is like Tiger Woods. It has to set limits on itself—be self-disciplined—regulated—or it will get itself into a mess. The absolutist free market philosophy of Greenspan et al. failed to require self-discipline for our economic system. So, needless war and greed at home combined to threaten our national security in terms of economic stability.
To defend us against enemies, foreign and domestic, is the vow that members of congress take. One of our domestic enemies is unregulated greed. One of our foreign enemies is Al Qaeda. To be patriotic we have to wear bifocals.
