Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader
of Al Qaeda.
One year after the death of Al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, UC Davis professor Flagg
Miller still hears his voice.
He's directing the poetry in particular to the former US Secretary of Defense William
Perry in the Clinton administration.
This speech is part of a collection of 1,500 audio cassette tapes taken from Osama Bin
Laden's private compound in Afghanistan a month after the 9/11 attacks of 2001.
Miller, who is fluent in Arabic, became the sole academic researcher to study the tapes.
And he says that when it comes to understanding Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda's history, much
has been lost in translation.
After 9/11 we needed a set of narratives to explain how this happened and what to do about
it. We thought we were the prime target. We were on that day. But Al-Qaeda had left many
victims in its wake before 9/11 and many afterwards.
Miller says these tapes reveal that in Bin Laden's early years, his primary enemies were
corrupt Muslims, not the United States and he credits Bin Laden's ability to use the
media for his rise through the Al-Qaeda ranks.
He's fascinating the way he uses language, the way he cites history and evokes it and
kind of draws you in for a moment, and then you recognize, kind of, wait a minute ... this
is not umm, this is not right.
Miller is currently working on a book about the Bin Laden tapes, which span the mid 1960's
through the mid 90's.
Only 22 of the 1,500 cassettes contain speeches by Bin Laden himself. The others are lectures
and conversations from Arab leaders around the world, offering insight into Bin Laden's
early influences, and his evolution as a radical Islamic leader.
Kristen Simoes for UC Davis