The Redhunter

Let's start with this excerpt from Walid Phares 2005 book Future Jihad:

Consider this: the 9/11 Commission released a tape, recorded a few minutes after the tragedy in Washington, in which a fighter pilot rushing to the scene over the Pentagon exclaims: "Gosh, the Russians got us!" Ten years after the end of the Cold War, the Russians were still being seen as the "strategic enemy," not the jihadists who had been attacking America and Americans for over a decade.

The 9/11 Commission, Phares concludes, got it wrong. There was no failure of imagination. There was, however, a failure of education.

I'm not going to run through the entire run-up to the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, as I've done that elsewhere on this blog. For now I'll excerpt parts of Phares article that appears on Family Security Matters today, which itself is excerpted from Future Jihad, referenced above. Just be sure to follow the link and read the whole thing.

In the weeks preceding September 11, all over the world there were signs that the jihadists were lip to something unusual. A month before, I was observ­ing the proceedings of the Durban conference on racism and imperialism. The speeches of the jihadists demonized the West much more than usual in the less advanced chat rooms of the time - which now are discussed as evidence of pos­sible terrorist attacks - the Salafists had been announcing a great strike to come. I remember reading "America, we're coming, the Ghazwa is ready." I realized later that al Qaeda indeed called the attack "Ghazwa," a word, equivalent to raid, used by Arab historians to describe the fatah. This and other bits made me feel that something had snapped in the minds of the jihadists. Since I was swimming in jihad research at that time, I could not sleep during the last few nights before the attacks and have not slept easily on many nights since. Al­though it was hard to predict what might happen, at the same time it was easy to predict that something would. ...

I have studied every video and audiotape aired on TV by bin Laden since Sep­tember 11 and have been able to review his interviews since 1998 with al Jazeera. I have also reviewed other evidence, primarily in Arabic, that has enabled me to understand how al Qaeda thought. But more important by my own standards, I spent long hours before the tragedy interacting with Salafi activists and also In­ternet chatting with those whom I believe were linked to the organization or at least knew it extremely well. Al Qaeda's strategic thinking did not surprise me at all. Already, some twenty years ago, I had several exchanges in open media with persons Iwould now call intellectual precursors of al Qaeda's thinking process. From these combined sources of knowledge and all the material I have reviewed in the last few years, my assessment is simple: Osama bin Laden did not create al Qaeda. It created him.[iii] By this Ido not mean that bin Laden did not inspire his followers or was not charismatic: Not at all. But I believe that when historians look back and have access to a wider scope of information and testimonies, they will conclude that it was the "rings" that found the "lord," not the other way around. It may be too early to put the story together completely, but one can eas­ily see that not only was Osama naturally inclined to lead a radical movement for jihad, but a Salafi environment in Arabia[iv] readied him for the mission. A deep ji­hadi culture sculpted his personal wish to see the days of the caliphate return. Added to this was his life experience and drama. But first, he had to be immersed in Wahabi Salafi culture. Only in light of that does his contribution make sense.[v]
...

On February 22, 1998, Osama bin Laden appeared on television for about twenty-seven minutes and issued a full-fledged declaration of war against the kuf­far, America, the Crusaders, and the Jews. The text was impeccable, with all the needed religious references to validate a legitimate jihad. The declaration was based on a fatwa signed by a number of Salafi clerics.[xii] It was the most compre­hensive Sunni Islamist edict of total war with the United States, and it was met with total dismissal by Washington. It evoked a few lines in the New York Times, no significant analysis on National Public Radio, and no debating on CSPAN. The Middle East Studies Association had no panels on it, and the leading experts who advised the government downplayed it. During the 9/11 Commission hearings, U.S. officials said they noted it and that plans were designed to deal with it. As one commissioner asked, "This was a declaration of war. Why did not the President or anyone declare war or take it to Congress?" I asked the same question repeatedly from 1998 until September 2001, but my audience was much smaller on my campus in Florida. We must be careful not to miss these messages again.

Here was the leader of international jihad serving the United States and the infidels with a formal declaration of war grounded in ideological texts with reli­gious references: Why did no one answer him? "Expert advice" within the Belt­way ruled against it. Obviously, the Wahabis on the inside did not want to awaken the sleepy nation. If the U.S. government were to question the basis of Osama's jihad it would soon recognize the presence of an "internal jihad." For this reason, the debate about the declaration had to be suppressed and with it the warning about its upcoming threat. AlQaeda must have been stunned. They openly de­clare war on the infidels, and rather than responding, the Americans are busy ad­dressing political scandals instead. Osama must have thought: "Well, that's what the Byzantines did, when the sultan got to their walls centuries ago. They weren't mobilizing against the fatah, they were busy arguing about the sex of angels. This must be another sign from Allah that America is ripe. Let's hit them directly."

And hit us they did.

I realize that hindsight is 20/20 and all that. And for what it's worth, I don't blame either President Clinton or President George W. Bush. For that matter, I don't blame Roosevelt for not seeing Pearl Harbor.

What's important is that we study our enemy so that we know them, the better to defeat them. My take on the whole matter can be found in the category Jihadism and the War of Ideas of this blog.