September 10, 2007

Osama bin Laden: Still Ranting Six Years Later

“From His Law is retaliation in kind: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the killer is killed,” says Osama bin Laden in the opening remarks of his latest video appearance. We hadn’t heard from him in three years, but I’m glad we’re starting off on the right foot.

I, and countless others, have long suspected that radical Islam sought to reach out to the Western radical left for sympathy and help. But bin Laden’s latest video is as blatant as it gets. And although he is crazy and unstable, he is certainly not stupid. He knows that the only way America can fall is from within. And as one would expect, he is passionately working that angle.

What’s most striking about his rant, however, is that it attempts to be rational. Bin Laden tries to position himself as a powerless American citizen who is being misled by the administration. His words indeed show the many faces of this fresh new bin Laden (with a fresh new clip-on beard, by the way – it just looks so fake - can someone give him the number for John Edwards’s stylist?). His excerpts cover a wide range of positions:

“The entire world came out in unprecedented demonstrations to warn against waging the war and describe its true nature in eloquent terms like ‘no to spilling red blood for black oil,’ yet he paid them no heed.”

Apparently bin Laden is a pacifist with real concern for public opinion.

“In fact, the life of all of mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations, yet [Bush] insists on not observing the Kyoto accord.”

So, bin Laden is also an environmentalist who has taken sides on the global warming debate. Now there’s an inconvenient truth for Al Gore.

“There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat [alms] totaling only 2.5 percent.”

He’s an anti-war libertarian! If this guy was an American citizen (and, you know, not a terrorist), Ron Paul would be up to a solid four voters now.

“You should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system.”

Oh . . . a total socialist. Forget the libertarian thing.

“And since the democratic system permits major corporations to back candidates, be they presidential or congressional, there shouldn't be any cause for astonishment – and there isn't any – in the Democrats' failure to stop the war.”

Campaign finance reformer?

“The genocide of peoples and their holocausts took place at your hands: only a few specimens of Red Indians were spared, and just a few days ago, the Japanese observed the 62nd anniversary of the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by your nuclear weapons.”

It won’t be long before he is offered a history professorship at one of the Ivy Leagues, considering some of their hirings over the years . . .

“Among the most capable of those from your own side who speak to you on [the war] and on the manufacturing of public opinion is Noam Chomsky, who spoke sober words of advice prior to the war.”

Ok, never mind everything I’ve written so far. Bin Laden’s just a complete nut job.

But he’s a nut job who follows the news, chases the polls closer than a Democratic congressman nearing elections, and has a full understanding of America’s weaknesses. Case in point: “And thus,” bin Laden says about Iraq, “what is called the civil war came into being.”

What is “called” the civil war? He knows the political sensitivity of this term. He knows what hesitant and disaffected Americans react to. He even says something about real estate mortgages – apparently he’s facing some of the same problems over there, there’s just nothing right going on with that cave market. But the point is, he has been watching us closer than we wish.

Six years later, he is still around, but he is afraid. Bin Laden turned Iraq into the primary battlefield in the mammoth conflict of ideologies, and now he realizes he is losing. The surge is working, Iraqi Sunnis have turned against him and he is unable to inject more resources into the conflict than he already has.

His only solution now is to take us down from within. It is to appear rational and appeal to the weakest among us. He is trying to convince us that his interpretation of Islam is one of calm and peace. “In fact,” bin Laden asserts, “burning living beings is forbidden in our religion, even if they be small like the ant, so what of man!”

Maybe I can tell that to the families of the 20-something year olds whose flesh – only six years ago – slowly melted off of their bones on the higher floors of the World Trade Center towers, because their only other choice was diving hundreds of feet to a horrid death.

God bless their souls, on this sixth anniversary. And God bless us in our efforts to prevent any such tragedy from occurring ever again.