David Barsamian: I interviewed Eqbal Ahmad in August, 1998, a couple of weeks after the Clinton cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan, which were, according to the U.S., in response to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and in Kenya. And he said, "Osama bin Laden is a sign of things to come." I asked him to explain. And he responded," The U.S. has sowed in the Middle East and in South Asia very poisonous seeds. These seeds are growing now. Some have ripened and others are ripening. An examination of why they were sown, what has grown, and how they should be reaped is needed. Missiles won’t solve the problem."
Noam Chomsky: That’s a very perceptive statement, expanding what he had pointed out much earlier. By now there is quite good analytic literature on how they developed. The best book on that is by a British investigator, Jason Burke, called Al-Qaeda. He confirms in detail what Eqbal predicted. He reviews a whole series of acts in the development of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is not an organization; it’s a loose network of very loosely affiliated, mostly independent organizations that have a kind of a similar ideology. He calls it a network of networks. And as Eqbal predicted, it became a major symbol and bin Laden himself became a major symbol as a result of these bombings. Before, it hadn’t been.
Take a look at Richard Clarke’s book. He says the same thing about U.S. intelligence. Until 1998, there was no special attention to al-Qaeda or bin Laden. They were kind of marginal factors. In fact, they didn’t even use the word al-Qaeda. But, yes, Eqbal is correct. What Burke points out is that every single U.S. act of violence has been a very welcome gift to bin Laden. He says, every use of violence is a small victory for bin Laden. It helps him mobilize the constituency that will, he hopes, join him in seeing the West as crusaders who are trying to destroy the Muslim world, saying, they must defend themselves. - Noam Chomsky interviewed by David Barsamian War Crimes & Imperial Fantasies the above is just a small sample transcript. The 2 disk set has tons more info.