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Bin Laden’s Letter to America
Whether or not Osama bin Laden is the author of the “Letter to the American People” that was recently posted at an Al Qaeda-associated website in Britain and e-mailed to hundreds of British Muslims, the Muslims themselves take it as being from him. Its indictments and demands against America must therefore be seen as having authority in the Muslim community. The letter, moreover, is a call for total war. It says our civilization is evil and must be destroyed. It demands that we all become Muslims and accept Sharia as the law of our society. The letter thus puts the kabosh to the idea that Al Qaeda seeks to destroy us only because of some specific thing we are doing that we could supposedly change, such as supporting Israel, or being involved in the Mideast, or having a unilaterialist foreign policy, or having too much global power, or being too rich, or not doing enough for world hunger, or not doing enough for blacks, or having a poisonous popular culture, or having too much sexual freedom, or legitimizing homosexuality, or any of the other root causes that have been used to explain Al Qaeda’s attack on America. The letter makes it clear that Al Qaeda is making war against us because of our very existence as non-Muslims. It is true that the letter includes a long list of indictments of particular American behaviors. But even if we somehow conformed to Al Qaeda’s demands in all those areas, including abandoning Israel and withdrawing entirely from the Mideast, we would still be the enemy in their eyes so long as we failed to submit to Islamic law. Also, many of the behaviors for which the author condemns us are intrinsic to our existence as a society, e.g., charging interest on money and defending ourselves from foreign and domestic attack (the author includes in his list of indictments the fact that America rounded up possible Muslim terrorists after 9/11). It is clear that under the terms of this letter, there can be no peace for America short of total submission to Islam. I wonder if the author—whether it is bin Laden or someone claiming to be him—realizes what he has done. He has discredited all of the “blame-America-first,” “blame-Israel-first” excuses that Western opponents of the war have trafficked in for the past 14 months. He has placed us back in the age of the early Muslim conquests. He has told us our choice is conversion or death. Indeed, the message is so stark that some of the more conspiracy-minded people on both the antiwar left and the antiwar right will doubtless charge that it was covertly written by the CIA in order to create “war fever” among the American public
Comments
Well, didn’t you just present the possibility that it was written by CIA by stating that someone else might do it? You have raised the level of skepticism yourself. Saying what they might say is sort of saying it for them isn’t it? Posted by: remus on November 27, 2002 8:26 PMRemus may have missed out on earlier discussion between the ideologically antiwar right and — what shall we call it? — well, other perspectives. He can see some of that discussion (including the relevance of disclaiming conspiracy theories) here: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/archives/000849.html (you have to scroll down a bit for the conspiracy theory stuff). I read all of the posts and that topic you referred me to, and I have something important to say about all those who want a physical ‘smoking gun’ such as a mushroom cloud over Manhattan. The problem with these people is that they do not trust our government. They think that, given the first opportunity, they will lie to the people and do everything they can for their own personal gain. Obviously, certain government officials have done so in the past, but that does not mean we give up on the entire system of Representative democracy. If we do not trust our leaders, then the American experiment has failed, no? I’d rather place my faith in the American government than take the side of the skeptic simply for the pursuit of ‘truth’. The fact is, if you believe that this type of misleading corruption is a common occurence, then how will you ever know what the truth is anyway? I’d rather believe our government (placing my faith in democracy), and destroy some crappy little desert country, then take the risk of me or my family or any Americans being killed. Also, anyone who says they support America, but hold this type of skepticism towards our leaders does not really support America. They support all the benefits that they get from the country, but they do not support the IDEOLOGY, which is the heart and soul of America. The USA will only be the USA as long as it continues to be a representative democracy, because that is an essential part of its being. If you do not support or trust representative democracy, (and it is impossible for every citizen to personally know everyone we elect into office) please leave the country and take an immigrant or two with you. Posted by: remus on November 28, 2002 2:00 PMMr. Auster’s view (here and in other postings) that we in the West are hated by Muslims simply for who we are (not Muslim) and not just what we do (support Israel) is further supported in an article by his FrontPageMagazine colleague, Srdja Trifkovic: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4649 Dr. Trifkovic details Islam’s historical aggression against India, first prefacing his essay with two salient comments on why we shouldn’t view current terrorist acts as springing from our support for Israel: 1. The political arm of Islam has been waging terroristic holy war on the rest of the world for centuries. 2. It has waged this war against civilizations that have nothing to do with the West, let alone America. Among other things, Dr. Trifkovic reminds us of the Taliban’s bombings of giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan in March 2001, and shows how such is consistent with their historical practices in that part of the world, along with much bigger crimes like massive genocide… We are at war against an ideology/faith that is at war not only against us, but also against the rest of the world… Posted by: Will S. on November 28, 2002 10:56 PM |