BOOKS OSAMA BIN LADEN READ BEFORE HE DIED

The Obama administration has given in to pressure from the public demanding for the declassification of documents confiscated from Bin Laden’s home.

According to the NewoYork Times the material included nearly 80 documents – most of them letters between Bin Laden and his lieutenants – but the initial buzz generated by the release came largely from the list of books found in Bin Laden’s compound. That appeared to be by design: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence seized on Bin Laden’s reading list to promote the release, titling the web page listing all the now-public material “Bin Laden’s Bookshelf.”

Some of the books taken from his compound
would be a familiar sight on the bookshelf of anyone interested in global affairs, such as “Obama’s Wars,” by Bob Woodward, “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,” by Paul Kennedy and “Imperial Hubris,” by Michael Scheuer, the former official who once ran the Central Intelligence Agency’s Bin Laden desk.

Others reveal a more conspiratorial side of Bin Laden, who was believed to have read them in English. He apparently worked his way through conspiracy theory classics such as “Bloodlines of the Illuminati,” by Fritz Springmeier and “Secrets of the Federal Reserve” by Eustace Mullins, a Holocaust denier.

Much of what came out of the compound remains classified. The latest release brings to 103 the total number of documents from the raid that are now publicly available, plus other tidbits, such as the reading list. Twenty-seven documents had previously been made public, including 10 that were submitted as evidence at a federal trial in New York earlier this year.