Circle Around the Sun

by M. D. Johnson

  “Oh get real Liam. Are we dealing with some type of chaos theory now?” Dana Johnson stared at the Irishman listening intently for his response.

  “Look Dana, there are systems engineers and mathematicians, back me up here Frank,” he looked pleadingly at the hacker, Frank Pezzone for support, “who are working on ‘order theory’ which is a branch of abstract math dealing with hierarchical relations that can be applied to terror.”

  ”It’s true Dana. The Feds have been researching this for years. You see,” Frank began, “this war of terror is fought for the most part using computer software as weaponry in cyberspace, and because most systems designers and mathematicians live in a world of concept lattices they’re now trying to disable terrorist networks at the heart of where they function.”

  “Oh shit Frank, English, for Chrissake, not cyberspeak,” Emily yelled, losing all patience. “What the hell do you mean?”

  “OK. A concept lattice is the central structure of most concept analysis applications. A set of partially ordered concepts. Each concept consists of a set of attributes and a set of objects. Mathematicians exist in a world like that of er, what’s his name, the great mathematician, er, the guy?”

  Bibi Gupta paused, waited for someone else to respond, and then quietly said, “John Forbes Nash. The chap whose work in Game Theory was applied to Cold War military strategy as well as international banking and trade.”

  “Thank the great Mother for immigrants,” Emily looked up to ceiling, “OK, can you explain this in layperson’s terms?”

  “Of course.” Quietly and with the dignity the group had come to expect from her, Bibi Gupta began, “What we are up against is rather like a chess game! It demands strategy and reason. Without logic, terrorism is simply random violence. Al-Qaeda isn’t a bunch of Arab yabbos in turbans with daggers in their teeth riding their camels up and down the desert. This New York Trade Center disaster required a force of just twenty people armed with simple box cutters. It was exact strategy, brilliantly implemented. They changed the global political situation, perhaps destabilized the western world as a result, with very little cost. You ask how does this work? Look at this.” The tiny woman in a dark red sari walked up to the blackboard and began to write. “Cost-effectiveness. We need to go after the terrorist middle management, not its leaders. Disturb the yield, make it high risk instead of low risk. A mathematician or a systems designer could help disable a network.”

  “I’m with you, Bibi,” Weldon interrupted. “The game plan is how many of them do we have to take out to destroy its effectiveness. We must go after them by creating computer programs that go through databases looking for links to people, events and locations worldwide. Islamic Conferences. Trade Shows. Mosque attendance. How many, for example, attended flight school, emailed each other with information about flight training or visited the places where known sympathizers live or where training camps exist. It’s called data mining.”

  Bibi continued, “Right. The world is run by computers. And this is a way of finding well-covered links between known terrorists and their currently unknown supporters. We must look at what they have in common.”

  Frank Pezzone continued, “You take a group of known terrorists. You then analyze what they have in relation to the others in the same database, like phone calls, mosques, churches or synagogues they attend, political parties or groups they support, who their family are. Then infiltrate and arrest where necessary.”

  “This is racial profiling. It’s illegal,” said Emily.

  “This is war,” responded Weldon Jackson provocatively. “Who the hell cares?”

  “I do,” Emily replied. “Doing this crosses the boundaries into violation of civil rights. First them, then us. Our government and that of Great Britain are arresting civilians right and left, even killing people who match the ethnic profile on simple bloody suspicion.”

  Frank answered her quickly. “The war on terrorism will be a victory or defeat based by winning over people or public opinion. The State of Israel is the example. Everyone forgets how they won their right to become a legitimately recognized State. They were terrorists without conscience in 1947 and Citizens by 1948.”

  Bibi took up the argument, “We are learning to compute reactions. Each one of us has a view of ourselves, and a worldview of others. When we make a decision, the worldview influences the decision-making abilities made by oneself. What scientists and mathematicians are doing to fight terrorism is reducing human decision making to mathematical equations.”

  Frank went on, “Decision making is straightforward. So straightforward that simple math equations can, with a high degree of certainty predict human behavior based on their self-image and self-perception as it is structured by the people who surround them.”

  “So the goal would be to make them feel insecure about themselves and their belief structure or let them see themselves in another role. OK let’s work on this and meet again in two days.”

  Over the next two days, the combined efforts of Weldon Jackson and Emily determined that Osama bin Laden’s personal goals were now at stake with each mission he planned. It was, they believed, no longer religious fanaticism or politics, but they still could not rule out predictable behavior and conditioning.

  Emily looked to the psychiatrist, Susannah Malek. “Can you take over Susie?”

  “Sure can, I want you all to remember that this is a trial run. Not a complete evaluation of the man or his background but based on the scant information that I have on his personality. If you look at the chart I have made he was born in 1957, either on March 8th or July 20th, depending on the source.”

  “That’s it! Sweet Sam’s dangerous already. A Pisces or a Cancer!” Emily said jokingly.

  “Don’t knock astrology. I did a chart on Bill Clinton and I was right on,” Dana Johnson stated matter-of-factly. “I’m not just lawyer you know,” she grinned.

  “Can we be more exact on that? I’m willing to look at anything at this point,” Emily added.

  “May I continue?” Susannah Malek raised an eyebrow in protest and went on, “He was a low ranking member of an extremely large dysfunctional family. Actually it was more a set of families as the father never lived permanently with lesser wives. Muhammad Bin Oud bin Laden was King of the Hill. He arrived in Saudi from South Yemen in 1932, worked as a porter and construction worker and then as a simple builder, fighting his way up armed with the high standards of his work and making influential friends until he rose to the top of the Saudi social world. Volumes have been written about his rise to becoming the head of a multi-billion dollar empire. Non-pretentious and held in high esteem by religious scholars. Yet he had so many children he couldn’t identify them all by name. This amazing individual still managed to bestow on his children a super strict Wahhabi belief structure, even by their own standards. For Osama, there was no choice but to impress his father by his understanding of his religion and culture. Bin Laden’s brothers were outgoing and gregarious and fared better within the western culture. Osama stood out because of several factors. In his father’s eyes he was respectful and dutiful, that was his key to unlock the heart of his father.”

  “His luck was awful because just as he was blitzing his father with his religious fervor, bin Laden the elder, died in a plane crash and Osama became the thorn in the side for Salim, who became the family heir apparent. Salim had repeatedly insulted the younger gauche and awkward Osama in public. Due to his low number within the family, Osama could not progress, therefore he had to create a new persona to eclipse his half-brothers. It is widely reported that the brothers clashed repeatedly and Salim was highly frustrated with his younger sibling who conversely was very critical of Salim’s marriage to a British aristocrat. Note that Osama has never ‘married out’ and takes a very dim view of such ethnic betrayal. Interestingly enough though,” Susannah’s dark eyes flashed skeptically, “Salim was killed in a rather strange way, as I’ll get to later.”

  “So who is Osama bin Laden?
What makes him tick? In appearance he is very tall, almost six foot six, fragile in build could be perceived as pitifully discomfited. Note that he gives this impression, the reality is that he is very much at ease with himself. He is often soft spoken, when it suits his needs, with sad dark eyes that flash and change color when he is enraged. His hands are large with thin tapering fingers; take note of this as it sets him part from his doubles. He is very well manicured, which I find somewhat telling. He is fastidious, always well dressed. In my opinion he loves to stand out! He is extremely intelligent. Women find him attractive and are generally drawn to him. Again, he is perceived as aloof and shy, but in actuality he is manipulative, controlling, and easily bored, with a hellish temper when roused.”

  “OK. Here’s my blueprint for a terrorist. This fellow has obviously experienced significant childhood trauma within his formulative years. There are incidents of abandonment, long term rejection and hostility by his siblings, bonding issues based on being one of fifty-two children and the trauma of his father’s death shortly after Osama had found some semblance of paternal attention. Osama believes in the hard-line Wahhabi Islamic code and that complicates things even more for him because he has a stern often heartless code of ethics to live by. There’s no place for shades of grey in his life and no compromise ever! Based on what I know of him and information I have received, I have been able to review the subject I know best, which is the issue of ‘unattached children’ and the Anti-social Personality Disorder or APD. Understanding bin Laden for me is based on his past and I have applied what I think is a dignified analysis to what I have been given as detailed information on his life.”

  She paused for a moment and reflected on her training at the Aspen Medical Clinic in Colorado under the direction of one of the leading experts in the field, Dr. Majid Riaz, the Chief of Psychological Services. What would he do in this situation? He’d tell it like it is, with no fringe bullshit or entanglements, no convoluted terms, just plain simple facts. “OK. Here’s my assessment,” she began, “The character disturbed child grows up without a conscience. They can become charmers, confidence tricksters, big time entrepreneurs, bogus preachers, thieves, pathological liars, and worst of all (potential) psychopathic killers. While there’s no known single terrorist personality, there are certainly psychological similarities to major players in terrorism. They all suffer from the disease of unattachment which often fuels a broad range of psychopathic and personality disorders including APD. If we study bin Laden’s background like other case histories we see no pattern of significant human ties throughout his formulative years. In this case, bin Laden was and remains attached to his mother, whom he adores. However, in his patriarchal Wahhabi society that would be discouraged, so he while he could open up to her, it is not considered manly. His mother was referred to by his elder brothers as being ‘a slave’. He was constantly referred to as ‘That Son of a Slave’. She is still alive and in contact with her son and we understand she worries greatly about him. But it is clear that given her low number in the pecking order, she would not have received much respect from other family members. This, together with the rivalry involved must have traumatized Osama even further. Even by strict Muslim standards Osama bin Laden did not bond normally with either of his parents. He had to stand out to get recognition. I understand his father could not remember the names of all of his children; this must have affected Osama greatly and could realistically be compared to being raised in an orphanage, group home or boarding school, with the disadvantage of watching daily preference of the first born to the first wife. Despite the luxury or its potential, it was likely that there was little direct parental identity or sense of belonging. At worst case Osama would be unbonded then overindulged because his family was wealthy. His frustration tolerance is then very limited, even with good cause and effect examples. I’ll cite, in lieu of a direct case analysis, a legend showing his high frustration level, where bin Laden became so frustrated with an Afghan soldier disobeying his order to kill a BBC cameraman for a payment of $500.00 that he actually ran away screaming and threw himself on his bed, banging his head and beating his fists on the mattress! As I‘ve said, he’s shy, often quiet and self-conscious; this could be attributed to his physical appearance. He is unusually tall, very thin, long-legged with large feet and hands, dark complexioned and frail. His brothers are shorter and they’re stocky with muscular frames and paler complexions. This would of course make a difference to how Osama sees himself.”

  “He’s very capable of hand-to-hand combat and the AK-47 he always has next to him allegedly was taken from a Russian Colonel whom he killed in combat. Bin Laden has no problem living in appalling conditions like trenches with his men for weeks at a time. He’s not afraid to go ‘on the lam’ or ‘take to the mattresses’ and he is very capable of cold, merciless rage. I read an article from the St. Louis Post Dispatch by Arthur Kent, who described a meeting with Osama at his family’s offices and he wrote, ‘There was no mistaking the unease with which Osama regarded his elder half-brother. After our brief introduction, Salim dismissed Osama with a wave of his hand, and the young man backed way with a look of cold frustration in his eyes.’ Note that Salim died in a hang-gliding accident soon afterwards and the company power passed down to the second son Bakr. The eye contact is very significant as an Antisocial Personality Disorder characteristic. It is defined as ‘being unable to look you in the eye unless extremely angry, frustrated or manipulative then the eye contact is terrific. The eyes change color when enraged, they narrow to slits. Appear very dark, until they are constricted and an intense look of hatred is seen.’ I’ve included as interesting backup for you some information on the about serial killer Ted Bundy. There are many similarities.”

  “Another key factor is the vocal problem. Osama is described consistently by those interviewing him as having a ‘nasal, high pitched voice’ when agitated, the pitch becomes higher and most unintelligible. For us, this is explained as speech difficulties manifesting themselves in both inflection and articulation, except when the subject is angry, then the speech pathology disappears. Think of Hitler and the speeches with high, nasal, vocal inflection, speech patterns that built into a frenzy but clear articulation when angry, even under the feverish intensity of his addresses. I’m sure that Emily can state the same about Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof of the Rote Armee Faktion.”

  “Surprisingly” Emily added “having actually met bin Laden years ago, I’ve seen both sides of the personality as well, So far your assessment seems spot on. Why don’t we distribute your list of the twenty points generally used to diagnose patients with this disorder.”

  “Certainly Emily,” she said, passing the stack of paperwork around. “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is the ‘bible’ by which we mental health professionals diagnose patients. It’s the authorized manual for the American Psychological Association and lists symptoms, histories, and patient facts about all classifications of mental illnesses. As you will see, of the twenty points I reviewed based on what is known of Osama bin Laden’s background, there’s a match of all but one. Children learn that they can please their parents by behaving in a certain way, by sharing and showing love. When they do that they demonstrate their parent’s values and parents reward their children. Over time and with further emotional development, children internalize their parent’s values. We think that is locked in by age eleven. I said earlier that he was a quiet young man, shy with tremendous competition for a place within the family hierarchy. He had strong motivation to get attention from his father, but the sheer volume of siblings would have prevented the much needed physical attention. Where his older brothers womanized their way across Europe and the Middle East, marrying non-Islamic women, Osama, save for some slight behavioral problems while studying in Beirut became the ideal Muslim son. It is for me, very feasible that his gravitation towards fundamentalism was an opportunity to gain power and manipulate others in the process. He’s become attached to �
�Allah’ where his own family attachment has failed, and the advantages to his personality are great. His actions have alienated his family and embarrassed their social contacts. I believe he has done this to get even. It is therefore by design. I am sure that his rise to super-star status as the bin Laden bad boy is the ultimate revenge on those who pushed him around as a child. They cannot now fail to acknowledge that the ‘Son of a Slave’ is, next to Saddam Hussein, the most dangerous man in the world! He can now smile at them safe in the knowledge that millions adore him and regard him as their champion and one of the chosen, with the blessing, albeit contrived, of Allah.”

  There was a knock at the door, the administrative aide to the group whispered a seemingly lengthy message in Emily’s ear, interrupting her note taking. Emily paused, looked disbelievingly at the young woman and then addressed her task force members. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ve had some disturbing news which I must confirm immediately. It would seem that an asset in Afghanistan has advised us that Osama in Laden was not in Afghanistan at the time of the attack on The World Trade Center.”

  “How far can we trust this asset, and how did we get the information?” Liam Nevan asked her.

  “The asset is a physician who was taken blindfolded to the encampment where bin Laden is reputed to have been hiding to treat one of his sons and there he learned that bin Laden left Afghanistan sometime in August and returned some days after the attack.”

  “How can we be sure the asset is giving us good information and not deliberately misinforming us?”

  “Because he is trusted and reliable, Liam,” Emily looked pale.

  “How do you know that Emily?”

  “Because, Liam, he is my son. Let us adjourn and meet at 10.30 tomorrow morning. Please excuse me,” and with that, she stood up from the large leather director’s chair and left the room.