Too much sense
In case you missed it, Osama bin Laden released a new videotape yesterday. Big deal? Aside from it being his first video appearance since he last broadcast from his rockin' casbah more than a year ago, he offered one of the most lucid, sobering analyses of the modern threat of terrorism I've seen get any kind of significant media coverage.
To prevent another 9/11, bin Laden said Americans should stop threatening Muslims' security. Well, duh.
"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda; your security is in your own hands," bin Laden noted. "Any state that does not mess with our security, has naturally guaranteed its own security." Way to be, Captain of the Obvious.
"Oh, American people, I am speaking to tell you about the ideal way to avoid another Manhattan, about war and its causes and results," he said. "Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you, and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened." Thanks for sharing. We didn't already know.
OK, so bin Laden isn't exactly offering up any advice that I couldn't have told the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. But -- funny how this works -- it takes the cachet of a terrorist mastermind to be able to have America listen to someone spell it out so plainly.
But what really strikes me as revolting is the way this new video and bin Laden's statement are seen as potential political capital for Bush on the eve of the election. Granted, bin Laden didn't exactly endorse Kerry, but somehow Kerry's supposed to be defensive because the reemergence of bin Laden means we need to rehash the war on terrorism ad infinitum.
I'm sorry, I just don't get it. What does Kerry have to be defensive about? He can point out once more that Bush has failed to capture bin Laden by focusing instead on Iraq. Hello America, clearly Bush isn't doing much to quell that terrorist threat. Here's bin Laden himself saying as much.
It's ever so aggravating to be living in a society where this is even fathomable. Bin Laden appears on a videotape, once again thumbs his nose at Bush for not being able to catch the man he wants -- "dead or alive" -- for more than three years, and this emphasizes that Bush is stronger than Kerry on security??? Granted, Kerry doesn't seem quite smart or bold enough to actually do what bin Laden says (and what sober analysis would confirm) to prevent terrorism. But he does seem to possess the modicum of intelligence, or at least lacks the necessary ulterior motives, to use chasing bin Laden as an excuse for going into Iraq. This makes me profoundly depressed.
And it's all the more deflating to be observing this as I read about the pivotal crises in the Communist bloc and how a determined, vigilant society ultimately managed to overturn an illegitimate, broken system without violence. Perhaps it's just a pathetic attempt to rationalize my own interest in studying Communist upheavals, but I really see some disturbing parallels. A willingness of the media and society to accept "the lie," to repeat it without questioning it, to consent to the erosion of freedom. Unfortunately, the parallels end there. I'm not sure Americans as a society have reached the point at which they acknowledge the illegitimacy of the regime and have become mobilized to change that. Then again, it took decades and a lot of tribulation to achieve that in most of Eastern Europe. We haven't experienced quite so much, but it'd be nice if we didn't have to experience any of it, if we refused to accept official fabrications and instead pointed out that the emperor has no clothes, only blood on his hands.
To prevent another 9/11, bin Laden said Americans should stop threatening Muslims' security. Well, duh.
"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda; your security is in your own hands," bin Laden noted. "Any state that does not mess with our security, has naturally guaranteed its own security." Way to be, Captain of the Obvious.
"Oh, American people, I am speaking to tell you about the ideal way to avoid another Manhattan, about war and its causes and results," he said. "Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you, and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened." Thanks for sharing. We didn't already know.
OK, so bin Laden isn't exactly offering up any advice that I couldn't have told the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. But -- funny how this works -- it takes the cachet of a terrorist mastermind to be able to have America listen to someone spell it out so plainly.
But what really strikes me as revolting is the way this new video and bin Laden's statement are seen as potential political capital for Bush on the eve of the election. Granted, bin Laden didn't exactly endorse Kerry, but somehow Kerry's supposed to be defensive because the reemergence of bin Laden means we need to rehash the war on terrorism ad infinitum.
I'm sorry, I just don't get it. What does Kerry have to be defensive about? He can point out once more that Bush has failed to capture bin Laden by focusing instead on Iraq. Hello America, clearly Bush isn't doing much to quell that terrorist threat. Here's bin Laden himself saying as much.
It's ever so aggravating to be living in a society where this is even fathomable. Bin Laden appears on a videotape, once again thumbs his nose at Bush for not being able to catch the man he wants -- "dead or alive" -- for more than three years, and this emphasizes that Bush is stronger than Kerry on security??? Granted, Kerry doesn't seem quite smart or bold enough to actually do what bin Laden says (and what sober analysis would confirm) to prevent terrorism. But he does seem to possess the modicum of intelligence, or at least lacks the necessary ulterior motives, to use chasing bin Laden as an excuse for going into Iraq. This makes me profoundly depressed.
And it's all the more deflating to be observing this as I read about the pivotal crises in the Communist bloc and how a determined, vigilant society ultimately managed to overturn an illegitimate, broken system without violence. Perhaps it's just a pathetic attempt to rationalize my own interest in studying Communist upheavals, but I really see some disturbing parallels. A willingness of the media and society to accept "the lie," to repeat it without questioning it, to consent to the erosion of freedom. Unfortunately, the parallels end there. I'm not sure Americans as a society have reached the point at which they acknowledge the illegitimacy of the regime and have become mobilized to change that. Then again, it took decades and a lot of tribulation to achieve that in most of Eastern Europe. We haven't experienced quite so much, but it'd be nice if we didn't have to experience any of it, if we refused to accept official fabrications and instead pointed out that the emperor has no clothes, only blood on his hands.
posted by Alexander Dubcek | 20:29
1 Comments:
Still, you can't simply take bin Laden's words at face value and assume his intentions are entirely noble.
"Your security is in your own hands." When you think about this, it is probably how bin Laden would define what he and his al-Qaeda compadres are doing. It's like telling Americans to become terrorists.
But aside from that observation, this sentence -- "Any state that does not mess with our security, has naturally guaranteed its own security," -- is problematic. Who gets to define when a state is secure? And it's not even a state here, it's a loosely defined "people," many of whom wouldn't associate themselves with bin Laden. It puts us entirely at the mercy of bin Laden, who, no matter that he can boil down issues to be as simplistic as Bush tries to make them on the opposite end, has made it clear he's essentially a psychopath. The Twin Towers weren't a military target. While I don't trust Bush with my security, I don't trust bin Laden more. Can you trust someone with a willingness to kill you if he thinks you're wrong?
Sure, he's right that Bush continues to be deceptive, and that the U.S. policy is not going to undergo a revolutionary change no matter who's elected. But I don't believe that this is a person who is telling the truth in implying he can be satisfied.
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