How Did Al Zawahiri Become A Good Leader

Dan Smith
Beowulf Research Paper “Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains.” (Libba Bray). Throughout history there have been many accounts of leader who once had all the power one could dream of, but lost it. Power can be seen in many ways, of course depending on the person. Al Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahri is a paradigm of those people who let power corrupt them. Once man is exposed to certain types of power, he is blind to how his decisions can affect the lives of so many other people. Al-Zawahiri is regarded as Al Qaeda 's top boss since the assassination of Osama bin Laden by United States special forces ("Al-Zawahiri appointed al Qaeda 's new leader"). Al-Zawahiri is one of the top terrorists the United States has been trying to take down, but has failed six different times
Al-Zawahiri 's wife and children were murdered under a United States attack in Afghanistan, his hatred for America only being a natural consequence, though never actually stated by al-Zawahiri himself. ("Al-Zawahiri appointed al Qaeda 's new leader"). Jihad is widely known as a war against "unbelievers," which is what Al-Zawahiri is pushing for so much. He feels he United States needs to be taught a lesson due to the fact that the United States is fighting a "continuous war on Islam and Muslims" ("Al Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri"). Power has the ability to consume a man and lead him to seek what he believes is fair and equal, what he has been taught to believe and what he has witnessed. The reality is that "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" and Al-Zawahiri doesn 't care as long as his world can see clearly. If he believes the needs of himself and, what he states is his religion, have been met, the needs of and consequences all the others experience do not and will never