In case you missed it, Osama bin Laden has a new book out.
It's in English and it was published in the West. I'm not sure of the royalties arrangement, but it's getting great notices. It is being taken very seriously by academics and "progressives" – the same crowd that analyzed the real meaning of the Unabomber's ramblings.
Who knows? We may even see excerpts soon in the New York Times.
Published by Verso, which is the same press that did a major republication of "The Communist Manifesto" a few years ago, "Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden" is a collection of the arch-terrorist's pronouncements, edited and organized into something that is supposed to resemble a semi-coherent message.
Why would this mass murderer's screeds be treated with this kind of respect?
London writer Brendan O'Neill has some ideas – and I think he's on to something:
I reckon the reason why some commentators in the West seem drawn to bin Laden's prose is because at times – and I'm not going to beat around the bush here – he sounds an awful lot like them ... Seriously, it is uncanny. What comes across most clearly in this 10 years' worth of rants is the extent to which bin Laden borrows and steals from Western media coverage to justify his nihilistic actions.
From his cynical adoption of the Palestinian issue to his explanations for why he OK'd 9-11 to his opposition to the American venture in Iraq, virtually everything bin Laden says is a rip-off of arguments and claims made in the mainstream media over here. He has taken the justifications offered by left-leaning pundits for al-Qaida's existence and actions (in the words of one commentator: "There is a simple reason why they attack the U.S.: American imperialism") and made them his own. And now these pundits have returned the favor by giving him his own book and glowing reviews to boot. It is the unholiest of marriages.
I saw this unholy alliance coming a long time ago – at least back in the early 1980s.
Radical Islamists, already committing barbaric and savage acts of terrorism on a smaller scale than 9-11, even then were admired by left-wing activists. Even though they had nothing more in common than a shared hatred – of America, Western Civilization, believing Jews and Christians and the nation of Israel – that vitriol was enough to draw them together.
It's understandable that bin Laden would look for friends wherever he could find them. In fact, as O'Neill points out, it's almost comical the way the Saudi terrorist leader latches on to arguments you hear on Air America and in the Nation magazine:
Bin Laden's parroting of Western views is most stark in his later statements about Iraq ... Here, he sounds like a cross between Michael Moore and Robert Fisk, with a bit of Koran-bashing thrown in for good measure. In a statement dated 29 October 2004, one bit in particular made me laugh: bin Laden seems to suggest that the weapons inspectors in Iraq should have been given more time before the rush to war!
He says: "... American thinkers and intellectuals warned Bush before the war that everything he needed to guarantee America's security by removing weapons of mass destruction – assuming they existed – was at his disposal, that all countries were with him when it came to inspections, and that America's interest did not require him to launch into a groundless war with unknown repercussions. But the black gold blinded him and he put his own private interests ahead of the American public interest ..."
In other words, bin Laden is suggesting the U.N. weapons inspectors should have been given more time to do their job!
I wonder where he got that idea?
As O'Neill says, one thing is clear after reading bin Laden's painful prose: The killer doesn't have an original thought in his head.
But he does, unfortunately, have the courage of his friends' convictions.