Care to know what was on the al Qaeda leader’s digital bookshelf?
After reading all about “inside job”, “it was the Jews”, and demolition and engineer experts talk up Building 7, Osama bin Laden was probably convinced he was a CIA puppet; and his ragtag bunch of “merry” men weren’t involved in the 9/11 attacks:
English-language books owned by Osama bin Laden included everything from works by Noam Chomsky and Bob Woodward to conspiracy texts on freemasons, the illuminati, and 9/11. “In terms of the materials that are there, some of the things that we’ve found to be of note were that bin Laden was probably an avid conspiracy theorist,” a senior intelligence official told Buzzfeed. “Of the 38 full-length English-language books he had in his possession, about half of them were conspiracy theory books.” They included Bloodlines of the Illuminati and The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration.
I think most America-hating Jihadis are ripe-pickings for anti-American conspiracy theories and vulnerable to anything that validates their feelings of persecution.
The list, embargoed until Wednesday morning and provided in advance to BuzzFeed News, includes volumes by Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist Noam Chomsky, former intelligence official and antiwar activist Michael Scheuer, conspiracy texts about 9/11 and the Illuminati, and a book by Bob Woodward. Bin Laden had these materials in digital files. The list also includes numerous materials about France, including information on France’s economy and defense, as well as materials that analysts think were probably used by other residents of the compound — including a suicide prevention manual.
I wonder what OBL made of Michael Scheuer’s book about Osama bin Laden? (I have that book).
“This release contains a list of primarily English-language materials that the U.S. Intelligence Community assesses informed Usama bin Ladin’s understanding of the West, and thus informed his strategy to impact the West’s decision making
~~~ “In terms of the materials that are there, some of the things that we’ve found to be of note were that bin Laden was probably an avid conspiracy theorist,” the senior intelligence official said in a phone call. “Of the 38 full-length English-language books he had in his possession, about half of them were conspiracy theory books” about the Illuminati, Freemasons, and other conspiracy topics. Texts listed on the “bookshelf” include Bloodlines of the Illuminati by the American conspiracy theorist Fritz Springmeier; The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 by the 9/11 conspiracy theorist David Ray Griffin; and The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, a book by the Holocaust denier and anti-Semite Eustace Mullins.
The list also includes materials from congressional hearings about Project MKUltra, the so-called “mind control” program conducted by the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s. Also on the list: maps of Iranian nuclear sites.
Intriguingly, the list includes “Is It the Heart You Are Asking?” by Dr. Islam Sobhi al-Mazeny, which is a suicide prevention guide. According to the senior intelligence official, analysts do not believe that this belonged to bin Laden himself, but instead that it was intended “for use with one of his own family members who also lived on the compound.”
Well, of course, since suicide is forbidden in Islam….unless you’re flying airliners into buildings…and carbombs….and suicide bomb vests…..this book’s for you!
Speaking of conspiracy theorists….
The release of these documents comes a week after investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s controversial article published last week in the London Review of Books that alleged that the U.S. government colluded with Pakistan to stage the raid on the Abbottabad compound, and that in fact Pakistan had known bin Laden’s whereabouts for years. In the story, Hersh alleged that the documents the government said it had recovered from the compound had been fakes. Anchukaitis said that the timing of the release this week has “nothing to do” with Hersh’s story, but that “We do though know that this process was taking a long time. Once a document is declassified it can’t become reclassified and the IC needs to insure that all the documents declassified will not hinder efforts to keep the nation safe.”
I wonder if OBL was a fan of Hersh’s brand of investigative journalism?
List of books:
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.