How did he become the leader of al Qaeda?
The picture that emerges in the book is of a very shy, reticent, and monosyllabic multimillionaire’s son who didn’t make much of an impression — except this religiosity and the fact that he was rather self-abdicating, giving money away to the poor and sleeping on the floor. So what changed was fighting the Soviets, which he did almost suicidally. One of the people in the book says that he founded a base specifically so it would take a lot of Soviet fire. That’s not the way most people set up their bases. He fought bravely, and people started looking up to him. By the account of many people in the book, a group of Egyptian militants told him, “Look, why don’t you be our leader? You’ve got leadership potential.” In Hollywood terms, he’s got a great back story — you know, son of a multimillionaire takes on the Soviets personally. Your book dispels several myths about bin Laden. One of them is that, by funding the Afghan mujahideen during the war against the Soviets, the CIA essentially cr
