Inspiring

I just read Bin Laden's most recent audiotape address. (Are they really still using tapes? Why not deliver on CD?) And I must say, if I were a holy warrior for Islam, or even a disaffected Islamic youth, which I am not, I would find it inspiring.

No doubt the above statement would cause me to lose my network TV job, like Bill Maher's description of the terrorists as courageous, not cowards, had I such a job, which I don't. I harbor no sympathy for Bin Laden. But he has a powerful way with words, he does, and I don't mind admitting it. He inspires his followers. No doubt he inspires people who were not his followers but are feeling pretty bitter at their governments, at the United States, at life in general.

Finally, I say that war will go either in our favor or yours. If it is the former, it means your loss and your shame forever, and it is headed in this course. If it is the latter, read history! We are people who do not stand for injustice and we will seek revenge all our lives. The nights and days will not pass without us taking vengeance like on Sept. 11, God permitting. Your minds will be troubled and your lives embittered. As for us, we have nothing to lose. A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain. You have occupied our lands, offended our honor and dignity, and let out our blood and stolen our money and destroyed our houses and played with our security, and we will give you the same treatment.

You have tried to prevent us from leading a dignified life, but you will not be able to prevent us from a dignified death. Failing to carry out jihad, which is called for in our religion, is a sin. The best death to us is under the shadows of swords. Don't let your strength and modern arms fool you. They win a few battles but lose the war. Patience and steadfastness are much better. We were patient in fighting the Soviet Union with simple weapons for 10 years and we bled their economy and now they are nothing.

What a disaster the Iraq war has been! How much easier it was for us to argue that Bin Laden was full of it when he was pissed off we had some troops stationed in Saudia Arabia. But we have occupied a foreign land. We have tortured people. We have used a single traumatic event to justify all sorts of reprehensible behavior, and we excuse ourselves by saying "well, it's not as bad as what the terrorists do -- we haven't beheaded anyone on television!"

Atrios had a post on a related matter earlier this week:

America's post-war power in the world has depended in large part on a perceived benevolence and general idealism. As a nation we had a kind of admirable idealism even if we certainly failed to live up to it at times. One can take a cynical view of those failures, or one can at least believe that the existence of those ideals is important. Sure it requires a bit of ignorance and naivete to say "We're America! We don't DO that kind of thing!" but there's nonetheless something nice about the fact that our own self-perception, if a bit of a whitewash of the facts, embodied that idealism.

But the Bush administration has done away with all of that. Instead of ignoring our imperfections we've proudly made them all official policy. We justify these things by pointing out that there are even worse people in the world than us! Instead of trying to lead the world we've thrown temper tantrums at it.

The things our country has done in response to Bin Laden have made Bin Laden stronger. Read the speech he gave in October 2001, and see how much less inspiring it sounds. He complains about kids in Iraq being killed (sanctions, I guess), about armies stationed in Saudi Arabia, and about Israel. In the new speech, he doesn't even have to bring up Israel, because he's got Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, etc.

Bin Laden himself would be and will be angry at America no matter what we do or have done. But the sympathy of the rest of the world is more flexible, and we have turned it away from us.