Here’s one for all those who would prefer to convince themselves that Osama is a cynical manipulator of the poorly grasped religious beliefs of the uneducated and poor, rather than as a deeply pious Muslim who believes that he is serving Allah in what he is doing. From AP, with thanks to Nicolei:
GENEVA: Osama bin Laden’s sister-in-law describes him as a man so driven by his beliefs that he would deny a water bottle to his own infant son in the heat of the Saudi desert.
“I’m sure Osama would not have wanted to lose his baby. By his insistence, his wife used a spoon instead of a bottle,” said Carmen bin Laden, the Swiss sister-in-law of the alleged terrorist mastermind.
“It was not as if he didn’t care about the child. But to him, the baby’s suffering was less important than a principle which he probably imagined stemmed from some seventh-century verse in the Koran.”