Move over Oprah! Welcome to the Osama Bin Laden Book Club. In his most recent video message, Bin Laden extols the works of the leftist author Noam Chomsky and he also directs Americans to read the book Imperial Hubris written by former CIA analyst and Bush critic Michael Scheuer. Scheuer places the blame for the turmoil in Iraq and the Middle East squarely on Bush, and Chomsky wrote of 9/11, "As atrocities go it doesn't rank very high." Indeed for Chomsky the only significance of 9/11 was that usually it is America that is responsible for mass atrocities while "for the first time the guns have been directed the other way. That is dramatic change." Chomsky, like Bin Laden, takes the view that we had it coming.
Bin Laden has been extolling the works of left-wing pundits for a few years now. In his 2004 message, delivered right before the presidential election, Bin Laden implored Americans to read the works of leftist Robert Fisk to get an "unbiased" view of why America was to blame for Muslim woes. A prolific author and far-left writer for the London Independent, Fisk is the British equivalent of Chomsky: anti-Americanism runs in his veins. And in January 2006 Bin Laden championed the book Rogue State written by the liberal writer William Blum, who writes for The Progressive and other leftist publications. Blum has called on America to withdraw from the Middle East and "give an apology to all the widows and orphans and those who were tortured" by American troops.
Prior to 9/11, Bin Laden's messages made no distinctions among Americans: we were all evil. But since then Bin Laden has changed his tune. Apparently he considers some Americans like Bush, Cheney and Wolfowitz to be the very incarnations of the Great Satan, while other Americans--inevitably on the left--get globally-publicized book blurbs often resulting in a sales boost. Interestingly Blum reacted to the Bin Laden endorsement by telling the Washington Post, "I'm not repulsed and I'm not going to pretend that I am. If he (Bin Laden) shares with me a deep dislike for certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy...I think it's good that he shares those views." Blums fails to mention that more than 3,000 Americans died as a result of Bin Laden acting on his convictions.
Why, you may ask, would Bin Laden praise these leftist critics of U.S. foreign policy? First, he recognizes that there are many on the left who hate Bush as much as he does and who share his desire that Bush's war in Iraq, and Bush's foreign policy more generally, end in complete failure. Surely Bin Laden doesn't share the permissive social values of the left, but he has figured out that the enemy of his enemy is his de facto ally, working with him toward a common goal. Second, Bin Laden recognizes that he couldn't possibly convince Americans to pull out of Iraq. Fortunately for him he doesn't have to. There is already a political movement in America, led by the pundits and activists of the left, who are working overtime and without pay to secure Bin Laden's chief objectives. Thus the chief architect of 9/11 can simply refer Americans to their own homegrown leftists in order to get the Bin Laden line.
Does the term "useful idiot" ring a bell?
Reader Comments ( Page 4 of 4)
46. Is every single I.Q. test ever made usless then???
Because, according to this post... their is a very subtle, counter-intuitive, yet obvious-to-all-right-wingers answer to the question...
Who are more alike:-
a) Christian pro-war zealots and Islamic pro-war zealots
b) Islamic pro-war zealots and non-religious anti-war peaceniks
Now I'm guessing that if this was on an actual I.Q. test... you'd better be answering "a" to this kind of question if you plan to score at least "average".
Y'see if you can't get that kind of 'no-brainer' question right ... yer an IDIOT!
pboyfloyd at 12:55AM on Sep 11th 2007
47. Pboy,
The answer is a b, dude. Indeed. Because neither of you is right. We are.
P.S. On that note, psst, come back.
Michelle at 1:23AM on Sep 11th 2007
48. Wow...the right wing has a token for every minority group out there...just one, mind you. And they're proud to put them on parade when it's convenient.
When's the last you've heard of Dubya's half latino nephew? Oh that's right...he brought him out for the election and sent him back to the closet once he got the Latino vote. And as repayment he pushes legislation to keep them out. (Florida didn't carry the election for nothing people).
Anyway, Mr. D'Souza, are you still on your "Racism does not exist anymore" soapbox now that it's your ethnicity that is being targeted as public enemy number 1 by America?
It's hilarious how you people can sit in your hundred thousand dollar a year country clubs and theorize what the real reason for poverty is. It can't possibly be a systemic flaw in how we deal with the poor and disenfranchised...it's their fault for not trying hard enough. I mean who couldn't make something of themselves with outdated books, rundown facilities, and overcrowded school systems?
Do you even read the sewage that you spew across the Internet? Are you doing it solely for the attention it brings? Did you feel rejected because mommy made you stop breast-feeding when you were 12? Or do you actually believe this drivel? It must be nice to be affluent enough that you have absolutely no clue about how the real world operates for the majority of the population.
Mike Brown at 2:17AM on Sep 11th 2007
49. Here a good read for all of you, regardless of your political view. The real lessons of 9/11.
http://salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/09/11/911_lessons/
Please take the time to read it, even though some of you might fear to get infected by the dreaded "Liberal Bias Syndrome".
JS
JS at 9:09AM on Sep 11th 2007
50. @ Michelle comment 46
Well, Michelle, I guess you are an idiot then. Can't you even imagine that these three groups mentioned in this imaginary I.Q. test all think that 'they are right'?
I didn't imagine that anyone giving the answer 'b' would think of themselves AS a zealot(i.e. fanatically committed person)... since an I.Q. test is a test of reason and logic... not a test of how bonkers you are.
Here would be a similar test of reason that you might fail too!(your 'reasoning' in brackets)
Black is to white.... as... orange is to..
a) blue(complementary colour)
b) red(you are a dyed-in-the-wool repugly and you LOVE red States and HATE blue States)
c)peanuts( elephants love peanuts and are symbolic of the GOPPIES)
pboyfloyd at 2:12PM on Sep 11th 2007
51. Some of the lefties that bin Laden claims to admire indeed do say some pretty silly things. But contrary to what Dinesh would have us believe, the religious right in the United States has done just as much to irritate the Muslim world as our cultural left. One only has to read Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to President Bush to see that many in the Muslim world think that Protestants, and especially evangelical Christians, are quite capable of putting avarice and the things of this world before their loyalty to the Almighty and His will.
Wake up everyone: the Muslim world things we - right and left alike - are ALL guilty of moral hypocrisy.
But what is sorely missing from the various debates about Osama and where al Qaeda is headed in the future is a sense of how and why this religious-political organization wants to change the world. I believe that Osama is after empire, just like Xerxes and countless leaders before him. If you're interested in hearing this argument developed more carefully, please visit http://athensandjerusalem.typepad.com/weblog/2007/09/rd-gold-editor-.html.
Nick Kopernik at 3:07PM on Sep 11th 2007
52. 40 to 44: I see your point. What you posted was your own rhetoric? You suggest reading the Koran. I appreciate your suggestion, but I barely made it to the Age of Man in the Silmarillion, and I doubt I could get through the Koran. No offense, but it sounds like a snooze fest.
You need not read the Koran in it's entiretysince there are plenty of books available from Amazon and FREE on the internet that would help you understand what this 'religion" stands for. Exercise your brain, it's more than a hat rack.
I also had no idea Christianity was such a supporter of women and gay rights.
You try to use the relativity ploy, if Christianity doesn't respect women and gays to the degree you consider appropriate (like gay marriage for instance?)then it's alright for Islam to murder gays amd keep women totally repressed and hidden from view. Read about the rules that women must live by and their place in society relative to men, then come back and tell me how it compares to the way any tolerant Christian religion treats gays or women.
And, I know you will correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the Crusades all about killing the Infidels?
Again read history. The Crusades were a series of wars to RECLAIM THE TERRITORIES that Islam overran, murdering evreyone in their path. It was a series of just wars that reclaimed the then civilized world from the rule of the despotic rulers who governed. If they had not won those wars, you'd be speaking Arabic, praying five times a day and forcing your wife or girlfriend to wear the veil and cover herself from head to foot.
peace! Oh and by the way, you'd probably still be on a donkey or horse rather than a bike, car or plane.
Vincent at 4:19PM on Sep 11th 2007