Inside Al-Qaeda's Hard Drive

prostoalex writes "Alan Cullison covered the events in Afghanistan for Wall Street Journal in late 2001. On the day that Kabul fell Cullison was offered to buy a bunch of computers from a local al-Qaeda office. For $1100 Cullison purchased an IBM desktop and a Compaq laptop. Before giving the hard drives to CIA agents in Afghanistan, Cullison copied the contents and shares some of the electronic messages in September's Atlantic Monthly. Interesting insight on al-Qaeda's financial operations and their merger with Taliban movement. The letters include e-mail messages from Osama bin Laden himself."

Comments

Fake information?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does he know this wasn't a plant? They've could placed fake plans/email/etc knowing this person would turn it over to authorities and thus throw them off the trail. To make things look even more real, you could lightly erase the data and let the CIA recover it.

My BSometer is twitching...

[cagle_.25]

Does anyone else find it remarkable that he just happened to find a computer belonging to al-Zawahiri in a room that had Mohammed Atef's name over the door. And how did the looter know that

Each day, he said, Atef would walk into the office carrying the laptop in its black case.?

Cool story, if true; but I suspect that A. Monthly got 0wned by this journalist.

Re:They never even thought of using.....

[aelbric]

Just a comment to all. THe date on the e-mail, if true, about chemical weapons is April 15, 1999. Mr. Clinton was in office. The big one hit on Mr. Bush's watch. So the next time someone says George Bush did this or Bill Clinton did that and it made the situation worse, remember this.

The terrorists don't give a damn about who's in office. They have been planning all this for many years. Bush or Kerry is irrelevant in the long-term as long as whomever is elected find a permanent solution to this one way or another.

Insights

[spellraiser]

The letters quoted in the article give interesting insights into the mindset of these terrorists. This is something quite different and much deeper than the simple-minded rhetoric that President Bush and the rest of his administration chant again and again: 'They are evil, they hate freedom, they want to destroy our way of life.'

For instance, take this extract from a letter written by Ramzi bin al-Shibh (written after the Afghan invasion, but before the Iraqi invasion):

Because of Saddam and the Baath Party, America punished a whole population. Thus its bombs and its embargo killed millions of Iraqi Muslims. And because of Osama bin Laden, America surrounded Afghans and bombed them, causing the death of tens of thousands of Muslims ... God said to assault whoever assaults you, in a like manner ... In killing Americans who are ordinarily off limits, Muslims should not exceed four million non-combatants, or render more than ten million of them homeless. We should avoid this, to make sure the penalty [that we are inflicting] is no more than reciprocal. God knows what is best.

And then there is this, written by Bin Laden himself:

Our current battle is against the Jews. Our faith tells us we shall defeat them, God willing. However, Muslims find that the Americans stand as a protective shield and strong supporter, both financially and morally. The desert storm that blew over New York and Washington should, in our view, have blown over Tel Aviv. The American position obliged Muslims to force the Americans out of the arena first to enable them to focus on their Jewish enemy. Why are the Americans fighting a battle on behalf of the Jews? Why do they sacrifice their sons and interests for them?

Now, of course there is no denying that the mindset behind all this is evil. But it is rational in its twisted way. There are specific and clear reasons for why these people commit acts of terrorism. By absolutely refusing to face these reasons, America and its allies risks alienating every single militant Muslim in the world, little by little. Why are the real reasons behind terrorism so rarely discussed?

Re:Insights

[Archibald Buttle]

If I had some mod-points today you would definitely get one for insightful.

The real reasons behind terrorism are rarely discussed because they are complex. Terrorists are hardly ever crazed madmen, despite what Bush might insist upon. They are people with a grievance, but they choose to stand their ground in a way that many people find to be morally wrong. Suicide bombers don't want to kill themselves, rather they feel they have no alternative.

The big problem with questioning the reasons behind terrorism is that it might show that we are doing something wrong - that we are bringing terrorism upon ourselves. Those that do genuinely and honestly question the reasons behind terrorism already know that this is the case.

The two quotes that you made clearly show that America has been doing something wrong in the eyes of the terrorists. We need to question the validity of their position, and do that in an intelligent manner without instantly rejecting their position. We also need to question the validity of the position that our governments are taking too.

This debate raises some very difficult questions which few politicians are willing to answer, since it tends to expose the immorality and inconsistency of their own position.

Re:Insights

[isaac_akira]

"There are certain people who have forfeited their right to exist."

The problem: that is bin Ladin's argument too.

From their point of view, the United States has attacked and killed innocent civilians. Which, truthfully, we have. It's just a question of whether we were justified or not. The first Iraq war seemed reasonably legit. The sanctions were a little iffy (millions of innocent people died in Iraq -- the question is to what degree that was the fault of the sanctions or Saddam). Our unblinking support for Isreal raises a lot of eyebrows (though I believe that through peaceful protests, the Palestinians could end the fighting as well -- either side could do it if they REALLY wanted to). Pretty much the whole world understood and approved of us going into Afghanistan after 9/11. But our recent invasion of Iraq didn't seem very justified (no WMD, no link to al Queda, no plans by Saddam to attack the US -- why are we there again?). How is our killing, say, 3,000 Iraq civilians less evil than al Queda killing 3,000 American civilians? They both seem pretty bad to me...

We have opposing goals, but at heart I don't believe we (the american people and the terrorists) are made of different stuff. If we were in their situation (powerless against a mighty enemy), I believe we would behave in a similar manner. Look at how we fought the British: sniping them instead of standing on a field of battle and fighting "fair" (because they had a better army than us, and we would have been slaughtered). That doesn't seem evil -- that seems like common sense.

The point of not dehumanizing them is that if we can understand them and put ourselves in their shoes, we can defeat them (and by defeat them, I mean both kill/capture the current terrorists and prevent new terrorist groups from forming). If we look as them simplistically as blood thirsty baby killers, then we can never understand how they work and they will only suprise us with their next attack. You must understand your enemy. From those emails, they unfortunely seem to understand us quite well.

The the abstract moral view I don't think one side is good and one side is evil, but as an American, I certainly want my side to win.

Re:Wow

[jericho4.0]

I found it darkly humorous. Since 9/11 the western media + U.S. 'homeland security' has been spuoting all kinds of usefull ideas for terrorists. For instance; attacking ferries, spreading hoof'n'mouth disease, and attacking the power grid. Put thousands of journalists to work tryng to sell papers and you've created an AQ think tank.

It's that fact that makes this era so dangerous, as it leading to laws being passed to restrict information and freedoms. :-(

Religious Fundamentalism is THE problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm almost 3/4's of the way done reading through the article when this line struck me:

The UN imposes all sorts of penalties on all those who contradict its religion. It issues documents and statements that openly contradict Islamic belief, such as the International Declaration for Human Rights, considering all religions are equal, and considering that the destruction of the statues constitutes a crime ...

It's interesting that I had a lively debate during lunch a few days back with a colleague about religions and what they mean in the modern world. Mind you, a healthy unbiased debate, not an argument.

I happened to mention that I think that all religions are equal, atleast at a higher level (as in if you ignore the minor details like forms of worship, etc) and that I think that they were created with a common goal of imposing "morality" and the "good" way of life back when law and order were difficult to maintain. The fear of God was a common deterrant to "bad" or "immoral" behavior.

I agree that many people find this view in contrast to the traditional beliefs of religions being God's word, but I just put forth the point since this was a debate, and I wanted to hear his opinion on it.

What I found troubling was that his *main* disagreement with what I said was the former part - the part about "all religions being equal" in the long run or from a high level. He (being a fundamentalist Christian) was totally revolted by the idea that I would say that the belief that "God is One" is the same as believing in the "Trinity". I tried explaining that those are exactly the sort of differences that people look at (in addition to form of worship etc) to argue against the inferiority of other religions, when it doesn't really matter, since all of them teach us to pray and have faith, and behave in a "good" way.

Well, I didn't get through, and the next day, he presented me a book (which I found quite outrageous) published by a campus Church group explaining why "religions are different" and how "they'll all find salvation at the feet of Christ". How can you hope to write a so called unbiased book, if your conclusion is that they'll be "Saved" only if they follow Christianity?.

Anyway, the point which I had wanted to make is that there are a *surprisingly* large number of people who refuse to believe that the best service to their religion that they can probably do is to increase tolerance towards other religions rather than denounce them and try to proselytize the masses under the guise of "saving them". I've personally seen Christian, as well as Muslim missionaries and other entities offer food/clothing and money to poorer people in Africa etc so as to convert them to their religions, *all* the while preaching that they won't be saved otherwise.

So ANY religious fundamentalism is bad, not JUST Islamic fundamentalism or Christian fundamentalism, or fundamentalism under the guise of any other religion. Hey, if you want to believe strongly in something, you're free to do so, but don't try to change my thinking or impose it upon me.

Sorry for the rant.