While Osama bin Laden was a radical Islamist, his philosophy also clearly resonated with the European revolutionary traditions that gave birth to both communism and Nazism. The philosophy of bin Laden resonated with the radical left in spite of the fact that radical Islam opposes rights for women and other such issues that would be conventionally associated with the left. Bin Laden and the radical left nevertheless shared a common vision based upon collectivism and anti-capitalism, as well as support for a new and transformative world social order. This shared political dream formed the basis of a natural alliance, one that continues to trump all other considerations. The death of bin Laden offers a window into further understanding the enemy that seeks the destruction of the Western democracies.
Verso, a very fashionable leftist book publisher, released "Messages to the World – The Statements of Osama bin Laden" in 2005. Publishers Weekly, in a gushing review of that collection of bin Laden's public utterances, described him as "not only a fiery communicator with a knack for manipulating traditional Islamic beliefs, but a revolutionary figure whose romanticized view of himself and his cause carries echoes of iconic revolutionaries past." The Observer, a widely disseminated leftist British publication, reviewed the Verso book in the May 2006, describing bin Laden as a "charismatic man of action, an eloquent preacher, a teacher of literature and a resilient, cunning, wonderfully briefed politician."
The Verso book revealed commonalities between bin Laden's anti-Americanism and that of the radical left, including shared anti-Semitic tinged conspiracy theories regarding the Sept. 11 attack itself. Bin Laden had the nerve to blame a government within the government in the United States that was, he alleged, in a manner that echoes left-wing radicals, responsible for the attack because there are intelligence agencies in the U.S. that require billions of dollars of funds from the Congress and the government every year. Bin Laden and the radical left both tended to rejoice in America's misfortune as bin Laden spoke of the psychological shock of the attack that he claimed cost the American economy $140 billion – 170,000 employees being fired or liquidated.
In April 2004 bin Laden, virtually channeling the radical left, ranted about big media, which he described as "agents of deception and exploitation." In language that could have justly been voiced by American left-wingers such as Michael Moore, he alleged that the motivation for the war in Iraq was to make "billions of dollars for the big corporations, whether it be those who manufacture weapons or reconstruction firms like Halliburton and its offshoot sister companies." Bin Laden declared, in a statement that could have easily been intoned by progressive radio talk-show host Thom Hartmann, that "it is all too clear, then, who benefits most from stirring up this war and bloodshed: the merchants of war who direct world policy from behind the scenes."
Regarding the Iraq war, the standard scenario on the left, in plain terms, has been that the idea of a war in Iraq was cooked up in advance by George Bush and Dick Cheney who both knew about the impending attack on the World Trade Center but did nothing so as to manufacture an enemy that could be then used as an excuse to invade Iraq, make money from Iraqi oil and then abolish Social Security. Talk-show host Hartmann described this very scenario as involving the manufacturing of an enemy to justify war in a scenario in which he compared Superman going up against the evil Lex Luther. Bin Laden spoke of the "ill-omened plan of the four – Gush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz." He spoke of a war for oil, claiming that black gold blinded Bush.
Perhaps the barely concealed admiration for bin Laden on the part of radical leftists stems from the fact that bin Laden did what they failed to do – he conducted a successful frontal assault on America and killed 3,000 people while striking the solar plexus of capitalism, Wall Street and the epicenter of American military power, the Pentagon. Bin Laden was clearly animated by a radical interpretation of jihad, a call for bloody war against the part of the world that refused to submit to the forces of Islam, a war, or a revolution, that would be waged until the entire planet submitted and moved into the utopian stage of dar el-Islam. This would be a stage of existence in which the world would become as one and all governments would, in the nomenclature of Karl Marx, whither away. This vision is the key toward understanding the communist nature of bin Laden and his movement and how that movement continues to resonate with Western believers in communism.
Chuck Morse is the author of "The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Hussein."