Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan, communicating his hatred for the United States in a series of fatwas, or religious edicts, faxed to the outside world.
He says American soldiers stationed in his homeland are desecrating Muslim holy sites by their very presence and that the United States has turned Arab countries into client states tolerant of what he sees as the United States' lopsided support for Israel.
"We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it," read a fatwa issued in February.
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Many are appalled that one as universally demonized as Osama bin Laden really believes that he has God's backing. "God is not on the side of Evil, of barbarism, of the brutal massacre of innocents," they say. One would be inclined to agree, unless you consider the origin of their worldview, determined largely by their national heritage. One person's god is often another's devil -- others likely view one who thinks they are chosen by god as straight from hell itself.
Soon after the settlement of the New World commenced beginning in the early 1600s, those who chafed at societal norms were always in a quest for virgin territory. With its vast areas of unsettled territories, "Go West!" soon became the rallying cry, and thousands answered its call. Inspired by their dreams, they took with them possessions both seen and unseen -- household possessions and livestock; and also their dreams, and their god, who backed them all the way.
In 1845, a politician put words to America's thirst for expansion when he said: "... the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us... It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air..." The philosophy of Manifest Destiny, that God himself not only favored their imperialism but demanded it, was hardly a new one. By the time it was given a name, the idea had been accepted as standard practice for over 200 years.
Eventually the conviction gave birth to official governmental edict. Federal policy was fashioned to first break up then efface from the earth all peoples not European. As a result, scores of Native American tribes became extinct, casualties of Christians on a Divine Mission, and native peoples that survived the holocaust would forever lose their former glory. Beyond a mere 'right,' it became a mandate Europeans aspired to obey. It did not matter that other peoples had long ago established cultures and homelands. God had made his pronouncement -- they, "by God," were duty bound to meet it.
In his painting American Progress, John Gast captures the mood of westward moving Europeans during those young days of the Republic. An angel is seen leading a wagon train from the enlightened east to the western edge of the painting inhabited by wild creatures, both animal and human. The painting stands as a fitting artistic representation of the mood those early pioneers had -- that god was backing them, overseeing their moves, and what could possibly halt their westward progress?
In 1963, as the dark clouds of war began to build on the horizon, American folk singer Bob Dylan wrote With God on Our Side. He sings,
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
While the earth still trembled following the destructon of the World Trade Center, national TV preachers Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said that "liberal civil liberties groups, feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters bear partial responsibility for Tuesday's terrorist attacks because their actions have turned God's anger against America."
In the political arena at the highest level, President Bush invokes God as he rallies the troops and the Nation in his quest to search out and bring to justice all those "evildoers."
Bin Laden thinks the Creator is backing him. He's not the only one. He won't be the last.