The latest outburst from Osama bin Laden is striking in the way it adheres so closely to the talking points set by the far left in the United States. From his admiration for Noam Chomsky to his criticism of the Democratic Party for not being sufficiently energetic in their hatred of the Bush administration, bin Laden’s criticisms track precisely with those of the Cindy Sheehan extremist wing.
The question is: Why?
Of course, the easy — too easy — explanation would be that bin Laden and the far left actually agree on these many issues, ranging from an aversion to corporate capitalism to an unforgiving personal vendetta against George W. Bush. Such an explanation will undoubtedly provide fodder for the less thoughtful segments of the right-wing portion of the blogosphere, but those pundits will be missing the far more serious probability: that bin Laden is playing a game very, very well.
It is unlikely that bin Laden genuinely shares the preferences of the far left in the West. Sure, there may be some points of convergence — I have little doubt that both western leftists and bin Laden’s neo-medievalist co-religionists share an emotional aversion to economic globalization, albeit for very different reasons. But bin Laden could never share the far left’s free-wheeling individualism, anti-traditionalism, or hostility to religion. Even though their hatred of Bush and “neocons” often causes temporary blindness among the more emotional segments of the far left, more sober moments always bring back the realization that even if they want Bush to lose more, their long-term interest is at least that bin Laden lose also.
Bin Laden surely knows that he has no real common cause with western leftists infused with feminists, gays, and other anathemas to his neo-medievalist theocratic agenda. His laundry list of support for leftist causes is purely tactical. Bin Laden tips his hand when he goes in for praising leftist icon Noam Chomsky. His goal is not to express real solidarity with leftist causes, but to feed the growing political divisions in the west in the hopes of further weakening the United States.
By complimenting the left, bin Laden gets a “two-fer”. On the one hand, he repeats and reinforces the anti-Bush narrative that already overwhelmingly dominates in both the western and international media. On the other hand, he also discredits all potential future replacements for President Bush by tainting them by association with him. Bin Laden’s speech gives ammunition to both sides of the growing political schism in the United States, ensuring that political combat will continue to escalate and that he will continue to face an enemy that is sharply divided against itself.
In short, Bin Laden is using BDS and its inverse as weapons on his side. And until both the far right AND the far left in the U.S. realize that they have more in common with each other than their current purist political inquisitions allow for, bin Laden’s strategy has a good chance of working its evil magic.
UPDATE: If I am right about Osama’s plan, then he must be very happy. Actually, he must be very happy regardless of whether he planned it. The response from far right and far left are predictable and to Osama’s benefit. Rather than focusing on how to best fight bin Laden, both the far left and the far right are spending all their energy on each other. The only winner from this obsessive internal political demonization that has become the sum total of American political culture? Osama bin Laden.
As an official member of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, I’d like to read the following statement:
“We officially deny any link between our organization and Al-Qaeda, and any appearance of shared goals and values is just that, an appearance, even our mutual extreme hatred of Bush and his neocons. Now if you’ll pardon us, we have a mass Bible-burning (sponsored by Lesbian Feminists of American) to attend to.”
Seriously, I think you may be reading too much into Bin Laden’s comments. I’m just not sure he really has that clever an understanding of American politics. And “evil magic” really is a bit over the top.
Oh I agree with Jason. After all, his original stated strategic goal for terrorist attacks was to get us to overreact and get bogged down, so we’d spend so much that it would cause massive inflation and eventually another depression. Like what happened to the Soviets except this time on the world stage.
Then he’d take advantage of the misery by trying to take over the whole Middle East while all the other powers were busy just trying to survive.
He knows how countries work. Remember before the 2004 election he had a video — one that the CIA analysts felt that he was saying all the right stuff to get people to rally behind Bush.
I think when history looks back on it, they’ll see bin Laden as a master propagandist. Well, at least in content. I’m not sure how much people actually pay attention to it.
“unforgiving personal vendetta” seems like the kind of thing a human would adopt in response someone like W.
Apart from that, I totally agree with the column. The North Vietnamese used the media well in the 2nd Indochina War (a Swedish evening paper was involved in one of their crafty schemes - I did my high school graduating essay on this and other things pertaining to the war), and OBL and his closest are probably more aware of American poltics than the average American. Enemies closer etc.
Only a human who has become so emotionally vested in political differences as to lose all sense of proportionality.
Unfortunately, that seems to describe an awful lot of people these days.
There are a lot of people that I have very strong political differences with. There are people that I believe have made disastrous policy decisions that have cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives. But I still can’t understand the people who elevate that into blind, rage-filled personal vendettas or comparisons with true monsters like Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot.
Of course, that means I also don’t get the emotional satisfaction of believing that my political “activism” is part of a grandiose fight against ultimate evil…
“The response from far right and far left are predictable and to Osama’s benefit.”
I think you’ve got that thinking cap on a little too tight. We at Political Vindication were having a little fun at the Democratic Party’s expense - it’s called ’satire.’
Anyone who isn’t desperately trying to appear centrist would recognize that the point being made is that OBL is appealing to those he thinks he has a chance to influence - he uses leftist authors for obvious reasons. He appeals to Marxist angst for obvious reasons. He brings up global warming for obvious reasons. None of them he gives a damn about. All of them appeal to leftist hysteria that has blinded them to who the real enemy is - not Chimpy McHitlerburton - but the man who would stone to death the very liberals he now tries to turn against those who see him for what he is.
He’s pulling a political trick - it’s called triangulation. I see you’ve fallen for it…
No, you have fallen for it. Osama’s use of leftist canards causes far left and far right to use his words to turn their guns (again) on each other instead of uniting against the common enemy (him).
Anyone who skims the range of reactions at Memeorandum can see that I am correct about this.
“The only winner from this obsessive internal political demonization that has become the sum total of American political culture? Osama bin Laden.”
Not the only one. Politicians too.
Read my post again - he’s using leftist talking points for a reason!
He doesn’t have to gin up discord between the left and the right, we’ve been at each other’s throats since you guys lost the election in 2000. OBL is demanding the left surrender like they said they were going to!
But we’re far right for making fun of it - Ha!
Clearly you didn’t bother to read my post or even find out who you were talking to before commenting.
What the hell are you talking about! It’s been the right that has sought the hunt for Bin Laden. It’s been the left that had called for surrender on the War on Terror.
Why is it that Bin Laden uses left-wing platitudes and not right-wing platitudes if his whole goal is to divide both political ideologies? The fact is the OBL has picked sides… and he prefers to support the left.
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Gee, “Uncle Seth the Noble”, who are you spending your time blasting away at right here and now on this thread and every time Bin Laden makes a speech? THE LEFTIES. NOT BIN LADEN.
By keeping up with that, you prove my point over and over again.
The Arabs have picked up all the childhood diseases [chicken pox, measles, mumps] of western development [like socialism — the Baath Party is a socialist-internatonal party — and dictatorships] without assimilating a much more complex and layered phenomenon like parliamentary democracy. They put on the clothes and go through the motions, but they aren’t able to really make the compromises necessary to make democracy work. Hopefully, that will come later.
Meanwhile the buffoons of the retarded left are trying desperately with their usual hysterical clumsiness to run away from UbL’s clear identification with key leftist tropes. [except the FLAT TAX, of course!!!] Other than taxes, the Old Man of the Mountain appears to favor Hugo Chavez & Robert Mugabe & Fidel, whom he oddly resembles in his latest makeover.
At the same time, NBC is deploying its chief gunboat, a clown named Keith-O, to say UbL sounds like Hannity. Maybe his voice sounds like Sean, but his sentences sound like Keith’s mini-rants!!!
And the three chief political observers of the NYT are a failed economist [Krugboy], a failed play-critic [Frank Rich] and a failed sports reporter [Maureen Dowd]. B-List commentators for a C-List tabloid of leftist tropes.
Wonder what Pinch is goiing to roll out next, now that he’s downsizing in every way possible, including firing my college classmate Gail Collins from the Op-Ed page.
As an official representative of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, I’d like to read the following response:
“We of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy strongly object to being called ‘buffoons’. And we would also like to point out that the term ‘retarded’ is highly politically incorrect, unless it’s a translation from another language like Dutch (we never judge other cultures)”.
Seriously D in B, take a chill pill. Otherwise, at some point in the near future you’re going to experience such an explosion of rage that the good people of Florida are going to think a shuttle is being launched.
As an official member of the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, I strongly object to your identification of Michael van der Galien and Jason Steck with our noble organization! The very idea is obscene!
Agreed Tom. I don’t want to be associated with communists either
Seth. O. No. Terrible.
Whoop de do
As one from New Hampshire, I strongly object to using our States land mark in such company.
hehe
In a marvelous twist, the people who accused me of being a “tyrannical liberal” “censor” have been joined by a stalker who accuses me of being a right-wing “censor”.
So both the far left and the far right make common cause in dedicating their time to hating on me. I’m a uniter, not a divider.
Apparently, I’ve single-handedly doubled their readership.
[...] Jason Steck, wrote a thoughtful piece on the romantic tryst between OBL and the Democrats titled Osama’s Talking Points. There’s little to disagree with there, until he linked up our satirical post about OBL’s [...]
Jason,
I watched the full length version of bin laden’s “speech” over at patdollard.com and I have to say, even though you claim he is elated by outsmarting all of us dumb Americans, he just doesn’t look that happy in that video!
Nope. He looks like a guy who’s kind of sick and tired of being sick and tired. But not happy.
I suppose next you will want us to believe that Saddam Hussein’s master plan of propaganda was to lure the United States into a war with Iraq, eventually capture Hussein and have him executed and in those final nanoseconds as Hussein’s neck reached the end point of that rope, he smiled and screamed, “Yes! I have outsmarted the Americans! I play the game very ………..”
“Only a human who has become so emotionally vested in political differences as to lose all sense of proportionality.”
He’s a bad man and he has damaged the constitution. It’s not wrong to work up something against him in order to get him impeached or even violently overthrown.
Either you uphold the constituion or you don’t
Reagan ignored the Boland agreement.
Clinton did too much to list.
Bush has done likewise.
The US population needs better standards.
“It’s been the right that has sought the hunt for Bin Laden. It’s been the left that had called for surrender on the War on Terror.”
No, “you” really haven’t. Obama gets more love from Dkos than Hilary, and he wants to target the areas where the real danger is - Pakistan. McCain, 9/11 Aand the like have not shown such honesty and foresight.
Why the hell would Osama intentionally endorse the democrats anyway? The occupation of Iraq in its current state isn’t bringing the US closer to meet any goals or get any decent rewards for its work, and it is harming it financially and even allowed A-Q to get a chance they never received when Saddam was in power (he actually sheltered a few terrorists, but never A-Q). They are rejected by most Iraqis, thankfully, but whether this is because of power rivalry or distaste for their goals is something worthy of investigation.
He probably looks green because he doesn’t like saying what his strategic plan requires him to say. But I doubt that interferes with his joy in seeing far right and far left turn respond to his comments by attacking each other instead of him.
[...] and more of an instrument of sociological warfare. In fact, Jason Stark over at mvdg proposes exactly that: If I am right about Osama’s plan, then he must be very happy. Actually, he must be very happy [...]
Whether intended or not…
OBL could not have envisioned such a rapid evaporation of those things that unite US…
9/11 leads to irrational fear, overreaction, and incessant finger-pointing. Polarization has settled in and the “left” and “right” throw fire bombs at one another and pull the majority of us, otherwise willing to work together, to one side or the other…
A society cannot survive under such conditions - we’ve been pricked by a venomous bite and the poison is working quicker than anticipated. (Perhaps we are weaker than we like to believe)
The easy answer, as the author suggests, is to turn our swords, precisely, on the enemy and our hearts to everyone else…but, unfortunately, it simply led to the same attacks on one another…Allah help us! (A little levity helps as well)
Has it ever dawned on you to question whether the video is legit?
It sure doesn’t look like it to me.
First of all, look where it came from.
Provenance: Where The Newest Bin Laden Video Came From
Now look at how it’s been edited.
Latest Bin Laden Video Is a Forgery: All References to Current Events Are Made During Video Freeze
The guy in the video doesn’t even look much bin Laden.
Karma Chameleon: The Pimpernelian Shape-Shifting of Osama bin Laden
Robert Parry has it figured out:
Fox News commentator Sean Hannity offered a taste of how the new bin Laden tape will be used against both Democrats and the American Left.
“One of the things that also struck me is the language specifically that he [bin Laden] used,” Hannity said. “He seemed to adopt the very same language that is being used by the hard Left in this country, as he describes what’s going on in Iraq as a ‘civil war’; he actually used the word ‘neocons’; he talked about global warming; he denounces capitalism and corporations.”
In other words, any similarity in language between bin Laden and what many Americans say in common conversations will be used to discredit them. They will become bin Laden’s fellow travelers.