Understanding Terrorism

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Like everyone else in the United States, the staff at PR Watch has been struggling to understand the horrors of last week and the best path forward. The following stories provide some valuable perspectives that have been largely absent from mainstream media coverage:

• The Atlantic Monthly reported in May 1996 on the U.S. government's own role in training and organizing both the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Another, more detailed report on this history appeared recently in Jane's Defense Weekly.
• More recently, a former CIA operative wrote an article in July 2001 deploring the failings of U.S. intelligence in the region.
• The Independent of London has published a detailed biography of Osama bin Laden, and Esquire magazine has posted a lengthy 1999 profile and interview with bin Laden. (Interviewer John Miller notes that "bin Laden's approach to questions could have been taught by an American public-relations adviser: First, get out your message. Then, if you like, answer the question.")
• The Guardian of London examines the reasons why some people hate the United States, and warns, "for every 'terror network' that is rooted out, another will emerge -- until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are addressed."
• For those who favor a military solution, Robert Fisk paints a chilling picture of the dangers awaiting U.S. ground troops in The Lessons of History: Afghanistan Always Beats Its Invaders. Fisk warns that Bush is walking into a trap, "heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him."