| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Osama Returns, The World Yawns
Alas, but we have once again been pestered by the news of
another communiqué from that insufferable boor, Osama bin
Laden. Amazing how he manages to get these tapes shipped off
from the bowels of whatever cave he resides in to the offices of
Al-Jazeera. As in the past, this latest tape contained another
rambling, semi-coherent message from the man with the 10th
century mentality. Call him Rip Van Laden, the man who slept
through or otherwise somehow missed the passage of a
millennium or so.
One wishes he could get his nostalgia fix from reading
ancient books or swapping old tales with his compatriots
around the cave fire instead of foisting his jihadist nonsense on
a world that has left him so far behind that, figuratively
speaking, he is mired in the cultural and intellectual
equivalent of the primordial sludge. The good news is that with
each succeeding message from him, one gets the sense that he’s
just about washed up, having gone from being undisputed king
of the terrorists to inconsequential, annoying gadfly who turns
up on occasion like a bad dinar.
This time the tape was audio only, perhaps so we couldn’t
see how unhealthy he almost certainly looks. Its contents are
basically a poorly worded summation of the liberal Democratic
antiwar talking points: Bush is the real terrorist; America is
losing the war in Iraq; the morale of American soldiers is
spiraling downward; jihadist recruits are increasing
exponentially; atrocities are being committed at Abu Ghraib
and Guantanamo. He even threw in a line about Bush’s “stupid
show-like announcement from an aircraft carrier on the end of
the major operations.” It’s the same kind of stuff you can hear
all day long on Air America -- that is, if you could find a radio
station that broadcasts the program, which is only slightly less
difficult than finding Osama himself.
But there were actually some things of interest on Osama’s
tape this time around, some special surprises, like a book
recommendation of all things (no, it wasn‘t the Koran): “If
Bush declines but to continue lying and practicing injustice
[against us], it is useful for you to read the book of ‘The Rogue
State,’ the introduction of which reads: If I were a president, I
would halt the operations against the United States.”
I have absolutely no idea what most of that sentence means,
but somewhere in it the guy was giving his best Oprah-like book
recommendation. It would have helped if he had given the
author’s name since Amazon.com lists a slew of books with
“Rogue State” in the title. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that
the rogue state in question is none other than the United
States, but it doesn’t really matter since I don’t generally read
books recommended by addleheaded terrorist has-beens. I do
look forward, however, to reading the Michael Moore and Al
Franken reviews after they pounce on it with that particular
relish they reserve for anything that makes America look bad.
Osama must have been feeling very erudite this time around
because in addition to his book recommendation, he also
provided a history lesson for us: “We have been tolerant for 10
years in fighting the Soviet Union with our few weapons and we
managed to drain their economy. They became history, with
God’s help. You should learn lessons from that.”
Funny how a guy who is so on the wrong side of history
would deign to lecture the side that is light years ahead of him.
I guess if you can convince yourself that the creator of the
infinite universe is pleased by the mass murder of infidels on
this dust speck of a planet, it’s a breeze convincing yourself
that you and your ragtag band of mujahideen single-handedly
brought down the Soviet empire.
But the interpretation of history is not bin Laden‘s strong
suit. The actual reason the Soviets were defeated in
Afghanistan was because the United States backed the
mujahideen’s guerilla war against them. And the reason the
Soviet economy was drained was because it was to begin with a
typical basket-case, communist type of economy, which is to
say, cumbersome, listless, phlegmatic, turgid, unresponsive
and ultimately unsustainable since it was utterly without
individual incentive for excellence.
Rip Van Laden apparently doesn’t get that it’s going to be a
lot harder for him and his band of unmerry men to bring down
the most dynamic economy the world has ever known. He and
al-Qaida are fond of bringing up the specter of Vietnam in their
threatening, anti-American rhetoric, but here’s a lesson for
them. While America fought that unsuccessful war for over a
decade, rather than folding like the Soviet empire, it put a man
on the moon and achieved the greatest level of affluence in the
history of the world. That’s not to say America is invulnerable,
but it is to say that his Soviet history lesson is sheer buncombe.
So much for the amusing stuff. The real message to take
away from Osama’s tape, and a great indication of his
increasing irrelevance, was his offer of a truce: “We do not
object to a long-term truce with you on the basis of fair
conditions that we respect . . . . In this truce, both parties will
enjoy security and stability and we will build Iraq and
Afghanistan . . .”
You’re going to build Iraq and Afghanistan? There’s a
laugh. What would you build them into, the world’s most
backward and oppressive Islamic theocracies? Stop it already,
you’re slaying me.
But seriously, Osama, it’s too late for a truce. September
11th was a bridge too far for you and your apocalyptic pals.
Your fate was sealed on that day. The official Bush
administration response to your magnanimous truce offer was
that the United States “does not negotiate with terrorists.”
Therefore, the game plan for our side remains the same: to
hunt down, kill and/or capture you and your cohorts.
So, Osama is back with another message, but he’s sounding
more desperate than the housewives on Wisteria Lane. You
don’t offer a truce to the Great Satan unless the jihad business
is seriously ailing. Maybe it’s the knowledge that his top
honchos are being slowly decimated. Or maybe it’s watching
Iraqis go to the polls time after time, even at the threat of their
lives.
Sure, he’s still blathering about big-shot attacks on the U.S.
that are “under preparation,” but he’s not the Osama of yore,
the Arabian lion that was going to establish a vast and glorious
caliphate upon which the sun would never set. Instead, he’s
Rip Van Laden, the man who slept through a thousand years of
human progress, and the sun is slowly setting on his twisted,
dead-end ideology.
Alas, but we have once again been pestered by the news of
another communiqué from that insufferable boor, Osama bin
Laden. Amazing how he manages to get these tapes shipped off
from the bowels of whatever cave he resides in to the offices of
Al-Jazeera. As in the past, this latest tape contained another
rambling, semi-coherent message from the man with the 10th
century mentality. Call him Rip Van Laden, the man who slept
through or otherwise somehow missed the passage of a
millennium or so.
One wishes he could get his nostalgia fix from reading
ancient books or swapping old tales with his compatriots
around the cave fire instead of foisting his jihadist nonsense on
a world that has left him so far behind that, figuratively
speaking, he is mired in the cultural and intellectual
equivalent of the primordial sludge. The good news is that with
each succeeding message from him, one gets the sense that he’s
just about washed up, having gone from being undisputed king
of the terrorists to inconsequential, annoying gadfly who turns
up on occasion like a bad dinar.
This time the tape was audio only, perhaps so we couldn’t
see how unhealthy he almost certainly looks. Its contents are
basically a poorly worded summation of the liberal Democratic
antiwar talking points: Bush is the real terrorist; America is
losing the war in Iraq; the morale of American soldiers is
spiraling downward; jihadist recruits are increasing
exponentially; atrocities are being committed at Abu Ghraib
and Guantanamo. He even threw in a line about Bush’s “stupid
show-like announcement from an aircraft carrier on the end of
the major operations.” It’s the same kind of stuff you can hear
all day long on Air America -- that is, if you could find a radio
station that broadcasts the program, which is only slightly less
difficult than finding Osama himself.
But there were actually some things of interest on Osama’s
tape this time around, some special surprises, like a book
recommendation of all things (no, it wasn‘t the Koran): “If
Bush declines but to continue lying and practicing injustice
[against us], it is useful for you to read the book of ‘The Rogue
State,’ the introduction of which reads: If I were a president, I
would halt the operations against the United States.”
I have absolutely no idea what most of that sentence means,
but somewhere in it the guy was giving his best Oprah-like book
recommendation. It would have helped if he had given the
author’s name since Amazon.com lists a slew of books with
“Rogue State” in the title. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that
the rogue state in question is none other than the United
States, but it doesn’t really matter since I don’t generally read
books recommended by addleheaded terrorist has-beens. I do
look forward, however, to reading the Michael Moore and Al
Franken reviews after they pounce on it with that particular
relish they reserve for anything that makes America look bad.
Osama must have been feeling very erudite this time around
because in addition to his book recommendation, he also
provided a history lesson for us: “We have been tolerant for 10
years in fighting the Soviet Union with our few weapons and we
managed to drain their economy. They became history, with
God’s help. You should learn lessons from that.”
Funny how a guy who is so on the wrong side of history
would deign to lecture the side that is light years ahead of him.
I guess if you can convince yourself that the creator of the
infinite universe is pleased by the mass murder of infidels on
this dust speck of a planet, it’s a breeze convincing yourself
that you and your ragtag band of mujahideen single-handedly
brought down the Soviet empire.
But the interpretation of history is not bin Laden‘s strong
suit. The actual reason the Soviets were defeated in
Afghanistan was because the United States backed the
mujahideen’s guerilla war against them. And the reason the
Soviet economy was drained was because it was to begin with a
typical basket-case, communist type of economy, which is to
say, cumbersome, listless, phlegmatic, turgid, unresponsive
and ultimately unsustainable since it was utterly without
individual incentive for excellence.
Rip Van Laden apparently doesn’t get that it’s going to be a
lot harder for him and his band of unmerry men to bring down
the most dynamic economy the world has ever known. He and
al-Qaida are fond of bringing up the specter of Vietnam in their
threatening, anti-American rhetoric, but here’s a lesson for
them. While America fought that unsuccessful war for over a
decade, rather than folding like the Soviet empire, it put a man
on the moon and achieved the greatest level of affluence in the
history of the world. That’s not to say America is invulnerable,
but it is to say that his Soviet history lesson is sheer buncombe.
So much for the amusing stuff. The real message to take
away from Osama’s tape, and a great indication of his
increasing irrelevance, was his offer of a truce: “We do not
object to a long-term truce with you on the basis of fair
conditions that we respect . . . . In this truce, both parties will
enjoy security and stability and we will build Iraq and
Afghanistan . . .”
You’re going to build Iraq and Afghanistan? There’s a
laugh. What would you build them into, the world’s most
backward and oppressive Islamic theocracies? Stop it already,
you’re slaying me.
But seriously, Osama, it’s too late for a truce. September
11th was a bridge too far for you and your apocalyptic pals.
Your fate was sealed on that day. The official Bush
administration response to your magnanimous truce offer was
that the United States “does not negotiate with terrorists.”
Therefore, the game plan for our side remains the same: to
hunt down, kill and/or capture you and your cohorts.
So, Osama is back with another message, but he’s sounding
more desperate than the housewives on Wisteria Lane. You
don’t offer a truce to the Great Satan unless the jihad business
is seriously ailing. Maybe it’s the knowledge that his top
honchos are being slowly decimated. Or maybe it’s watching
Iraqis go to the polls time after time, even at the threat of their
lives.
Sure, he’s still blathering about big-shot attacks on the U.S.
that are “under preparation,” but he’s not the Osama of yore,
the Arabian lion that was going to establish a vast and glorious
caliphate upon which the sun would never set. Instead, he’s
Rip Van Laden, the man who slept through a thousand years of
human progress, and the sun is slowly setting on his twisted,
dead-end ideology.