What Does Bin Laden Know?

While most of my previous writings have been about the (mis)interpretation of the Quran that Bin Laden engaged in — for example, his reading of The Slayer Verse 9:5 in the Quran — I have never really stopped to think about his geo-political evaluations.

While reading one of his interviews from 1999, I came across a passage that makes him appear a bit prophetic, and based on that, makes me wonder what he, a former ally of the CIA, learned in his time. Again keep in mind this is four years before we invaded Iraq:

These days, there is also a plan to divide Iraq into three – one in the north for Muslim kurds, a state in the middle, and a third in the south.

Given the fact that we know that AEI and Project for New American Century had plans for Iraq in the late 90's, it makes one wonder how Bin Laden was simultaneously aware of them. Is it really just a guess?

In his interview he went on to add another interesting tid-bit. It could be a bit of wishful thinking:

The same applies to the land of the two mosques (Saudi Arabia) where there is a plan to divide it into a state for the two mosques, another state for oil in the eastern region, and a state in the middle. This would make the people of the two mosques always busy trying to earn a living, and would leave a few people in the oil region who can be easily controlled.

Again, that plan seems extremely specific. Too specific, no? How many people have you met — certainly I have never met any — who have ever articulated such a plan about Saudi Arabia. The specificity of that plan bothers me, especially because it is coming from a guy who used to hob-nob with all of our insiders, and then knew about our Iraq plans four years before they were advanced. It might be possible that in 1999 there was potentially such a plan for Saudi Arabia — dreamt up by whom? — but things changed radically in 2001 when Saudi Arabia threw their entire weight with us.

Ah hell, who knows, maybe all this 9/11 talk has just got me chasing Bin Laden ghosts. The left side of my political brain says that the right-wing's fear-mongering is working; the right side of my political brain says that in today's world you can never be too careful.

UPDATE: In an email I am shown this map about redrawing the Middle East in which Saudi Arabia is split into three. That map comes from the Armed Forces Journal which printed an article on the subject. This was after the Iraq War, though.