Hey guys,
found this today, interesting reading.
Greetings, America. My Name is Osama bin Laden.
http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2001/010913_mfe_binladen_1.html By John Miller
A conversation with the most dangerous man in the world.
Editor's note: What follows is an article on Osama bin Laden that was
published in the
February 1999 issue of Esquire. It has not been updated. We have posted
it here simply
because it contains some unique background information on the lead
suspect in the attack on
America.
The gunfire started with a few shots, but in seconds it was thundering.
On cue, dozens of Arab
men began firing their rifles into the air when the headlights of the
first four-wheel-drive vehicle
crested the mountaintop. My right ear was pounding. I turned, expecting
to see a cannon, but
instead it was just a smiling boy-he might have been fifteen-and he was
firing his machine gun
an inch from my ear. I assumed that this was some kind of test, a rite
of passage. He wanted to
see fear. I'd been a reporter and a police official in New York. I'd
heard my share of shots fired
in anger. I just smiled at the kid and gently pushed the gun away. This
was my way of saying,
Nice try, but you didn't make me jump. No matter, the kid was right
back an inch from my ear,
firing away. Now it wasn't funny anymore. I glared at him, but let's
face it, the little salamander had an
AK-47 with a thirty-round clip. How far could I get with hard eyes? One
thing I learned in New York
during the crack wars of the late eighties: Teenagers with machine guns
are best not diddlyed with.
So as I watched the man arrive and his loyal soldiers discharged their
weapons in ecstasy, this
kid was doing his best to make me deaf.
The mountaintop in southern Afghanistan was a long way from home, but
in another way it
wasn't. I was almost sure that night that the man I had come to meet,
the man who was
inspiring all this firepower, had pressed the buttons that blew up the
World Trade Center in New
York. Small world.
Just minutes before this explosive welcome, I had been told, "Mr. bin
Laden will be here shortly."
The tall bearded man with the elaborate turban had not introduced
himself by name, but he
seemed to be, for lack of a better title, Osama bin Laden's press
secretary. "We have prepared
a great welcome. Whenever he comes, there is always celebration."
Yellow trails from tracer bullets streaked at odd angles, crisscrossing
the black, star-crowded
skies. Fireworks shot up, and sparks fell like orange rain, evaporating
before they hit the
ground. As the gunfire continued, the motorcade of three
four-wheel-drives crossed the flat dirt
encampment.
Scores of bin Laden's most devout followers were here, all carrying
Chinese- and Russian-made
machine guns. Several were posted strategically with rocket-propelled
grenades. For months, I
had been trying to arrange an interview with the man. Now, two months
before the destruction of
U. S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by bin Laden's truck bombs, it
was happening. It was
after midnight on this mountaintop, and Osama bin Laden was not yet a
household name in the
United States. Still, a grand jury in New York had for a year been
hearing evidence about his role
as a key organizer and financier of anti-American terrorism. The FBI
suspected that bin
Laden-or at least bin Laden's money-had been behind everything from the
World Trade Center
bombing to the downing of American helicopters in Somalia to bombings
that targeted American
servicemen in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. And by now, bin Laden knew that
his targets were
beginning to wake up to the threat he posed.
That was the very reason I wanted to interview him, and the reason
getting such an interview
would not be a simple process. His public-relations apparatus is a
sophisticated and complex
network of agents and intermediaries. The first discussions took place
in the old, ornate
Jefferson Hotel in Washington. A couple of ABC News producers, Chris
Isham and Len Tepper,
brought me to meet with a trusted contact who had good connections
among Islamic
fundamentalists. Soon he sent word back: We would have to travel to
London and meet with
some of bin Laden's people. Bin Laden, it seems, has people all over.
Two meetings, both in
Tudor-style homes a half hour's drive from central London. We removed
our shoes, drank cider
and water, and made our intentions toward bin Laden known. We told his
people we would raise
the issues that concerned him, and "tell his side" and enough about his
background so people
would get a broader understanding of him.
"Instead of just pounding on the 'terrorist on the mountain' theme," I
told one of bin Laden's
agents, "we could frame his issues about America in such a way that
people might find his
arguments reasonable."
The man smiled. "It may be better if he does not appear to be too
reasonable," he said.
For the rest, go to
http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2001/010913_mfe_binladen_1.html
