When I Saw The Pictures Of New

The Bin Laden I Met Each Time Was In A Simple Saudi White Robe, With A Simple, Cheap Kafiya And Very Cheap Plastic Sandals. But A Videotape Released Before September 11, Which I Saw On Lebanese Television, Had Him In A Gold Embroidered Robe. When I Saw This, I Thought, Whoa, Has This Guy Changed? I Wouldn't Have Imagined Him Ever Appearing In Such Golden Robes When I Met Him.

Osama Bin Laden Is Very Shrewd. But He Struck Me, Even In 1997, As Being Remarkably Out Of Touch. I Remember Thinking This Does Not Look Like The Type Of Guy Who Walks To The Top Of A Mountain With A Mobile Phone And Says, "operation B, Attack."now He Is America's Number One Enemy. He's Always Wanted To Be That.

We Love To Think This Fundamentalism And Terrorism Is All About Poverty, And, Of Course, It Has A Connection. You Can See That These People Not Only Are Poor But They Have No Outlets. These Governments Allow No Opposition. So What Do People Do? They Go To Islam. It's The Only Organizational Institution Where They Can Express Their Feelings. But It's Not About Poverty. I've Never Seen A Single Demonstration In Which The People Have Come Out With Signs Saying, "please Give Us Better Roads. Please Give Us New Prenatal Clinics. Please Give Us A New Sewage System."

Why Is It That We Go To Immense Lengths Getting The Serbs Who Were Responsible For The Massacre Of 7,000 At Srbrenica - That's Slightly More Than The Total Figure For New York - And We Take Them To A Tribunal In The Hague, And One After Another, We Arraign Them, Try Them, Convict Them, And Punish Them In Front Of The World, But No Plans Have Been Brought Forward To Get Bin Laden And His Friends And Put Them On Trial?

And It's True, You Hear Things In Damascus And, After A Few Hours, The Human Double-take Stops Operating.