Bush today:
"History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake. Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?"When you are reduced to quoting Bin Laden, and comparing your self-declared "war" on a handful of fanatics with epic global struggles of the past, you have become very pitiable indeed.
...
Bush also quoted bin Laden saying:
• "Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us."
• Al-Qaida can cause the U.S. economy to collapse by implementing a "bleed-until-bankruptcy plan."
• The defeat of American forces in Beirut in 1983 is proof America does not have the stomach to stay in a fight. "In Somalia, the United States pulled out, trailing disappointment, defeat and failure behind it," Bush said bin Laden wrote.
• "The most serious issue today for the whole world is this third world war that is raging in Iraq. ... The whole world is watching this war and that it will end in victory and glory or misery and humiliation."
Meanwhile, Condi "Black, C'est Moi" Rice keeps drawing ridiculous parallels between the Iraq war and the US Civil War.
Like I said, this is not about logic or reason, it is about terrifying GOP voters into action in two months time. Pathetic.
Let us hope that the US media follow Bush's lead and finally allow themselves to report on what Bin Laden has said. It could be quite interesting. We might even get back to a missed opportunity post-9/11: Bin Laden's major motivation for the 9/11 attacks was the imperialistic US presence in the Middle East, particularly their support of repressive regimes. Rather than acknowledging this as a justifiable grievance, however, the USA ignored it. Since then, they have pursed the same policies (with a new spin, of course) and Bin Laden's fundamentalist anti-US support has only grown.
To quote Patrick Cockburn:
Across the Middle East secularist and nationalist regimes are being discredited by the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. Most governments in the region are corrupt patronage machines backed by brutal security services. They are close to the US but have little influence over it. All are becoming unstable in a way not seen since the 1960s...
The real reason of the increasing violence in the Middle East is the return to imperial control and foreign occupation half a century after the European colonial empires were broken up. This is the fuel for Islamic militancy. This is why fanatical but isolated Islamic groups can suddenly win broader support. Governments allied to the US and Britain have no legitimacy. The attempts by America and Britain to crush Islamic militancy across the Middle East are making sure it will become stronger.
