ABC gives platforms to megalomaniacs

Just like some U.S. presidential wanabees, Osama bin Laden is a megalomaniac. The al Qaeda leader, who was to go on and cause carnage at two U.S. embassies within two months, wanted to meet the American public via an ABC Television interview. If the specter of bin Laden, the ABC television star isn’t enough, former ABC correspondent John Miller, testifying at the first Guantanamo war crimes trial, also recalled comparing bin Laden with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt as he made small talk during filming of the May 28, 1998, interview at an Afghanistan mountain hideout.

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Just like some U.S. presidential wanabees, Osama bin Laden is a megalomaniac. The al Qaeda leader, who was to go on and cause carnage at two U.S. embassies within two months, wanted to meet the American public via an ABC Television interview. If the specter of bin Laden, the ABC television star isn’t enough, former ABC correspondent John Miller, testifying at the first Guantanamo war crimes trial, also recalled comparing bin Laden with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt as he made small talk during filming of the May 28, 1998, interview at an Afghanistan mountain hideout.

“It was a rare opportunity for an American journalist, and Miller detailed a movie-thriller route to get to bin Laden, complete with multiple plane flights in Pakistan, a nighttime border crossing into Afghanistan, and muzzle flashes from automatic weapons at an al Qaeda checkpoint,” Reuters, July 29, 2008.

“You are like the Middle East version of Teddy Roosevelt,” Miller, who is now the chief FBI spokesman, told bin Laden in a selection of the interview tape screened for the trial of bin Laden’s driver, Salim Hamdan.”

One does not have to expend too much imagination to see how this would go to the terrorist’s head. The long arm of the law has finally caught up to Hamdan, who is being tried on charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism for his role as bin Laden’s chauffeur—which prosecutors say also included his serving as his bodyguard. Why Miller’s testimony was called for is unclear, particularly as he admitted he did not recognize Hamdan, who sat in the courtroom at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Perhaps like Ricky Ricardo, chief prosecutor Col. Lawrence Morris who said the relevance of Miller’s testimony “is clearly up to the jury to determine” will have some `splainin’ to do. Miller explained his Roosevelt remark as being meant to test bin Laden’s historical awareness and “keep the conversation going” as his cameraman filed secondary footage. How bin Laden’s historical awareness would matter will have to remain in the murky mists of time. Miller said he compared bin Laden and Rooosevelt as the two sons of wealthy families who fought on front lines—Roosevelt gained fame as a U.S. Army Cavalry colonel in Cuba during the 1898 Spanish-American war. Bin Laden was with the Taliban fighting off Masoud, Lion of the Panjir Valley, leader of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance.

“On one level, it’s an absurd comparison,” Miller said. However, he said, “sometimes when you ask a provocative question you elicit an interesting response.”

But cagey bin Laden didn’t fall for it. However Miller says it achieved his goal in granting the interview.

“They wanted to introduce Osama bin Laden to America,” Miller said. “It did that.”

Miller said Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden’s second-in-command, told him at the time that he would see in coming weeks the results of bin Laden’s recent religious edict that it was Muslims’ duty to “kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military.” It didn’t take long. On August 7, 1998—barely two months later, U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were destroyed by truck bombs in an al Qaeda attack. Miller said he tried to arrange a second interview with bin Laden after the attacks, and the network’ freelance “stringer” in Pakistan got a call from Zawahri. Hamdan’s jury was not allowed to hear Zawahri’s message to the stringer, which was ruled hearsay. But lawyers said the general message was: “The war has just begun.” Meanwhile, ABC hasn’t changed when it comes to getting the story. ABC Charles Gibson was one of the fawning anchors when Barack Hussein Obama went to Iraq, Israel and Germany, last week.