From what I’ve read, the new OBL tape was made a couple of weeks ago. Maybe my speculations are totally off the mark, but after reading various observations about the tape, I wonder if OBL knew that Arafat was sick and this tape, with its references to Palestine, was not also an attempt to recruit knowing that Arafat’s death or serious illness means that there is a power vacuum in the PLO?
Arafat never designated a successor. He is still the “face” of the PLO for the majority of us in the world.
Obviously I don’t discount that the tape was meant to address Americans, and just as obviously, as I heard Bob Scheiffer just say on CBS, Americans will not give any credence to anything OBL says…we simply cannot, considering his admission that he was part of the attack on the WTC.
However, since reading Imperial Hubris, I wonder about that author’s claim that OBL’s attacks are in the U.S. because OBL sees his actions as defensive measures, and not as an attack on western civilization. I don’t think this is a conversation American politicians and citizens can have at this time, either. But isn’t that what OBL was saying in that tape?
At the same time, the guy who wrote Imperial Hubris said we are in a religious war, whether we want one or not. But I have some problems with that idea because it allows OBL to frame the terms of what’s going on, and seems to make it impossible to deal with situations at hand from anything other than an extreme ideological position.
Obviously we can accept that someone has declared jihad on us, but it doesn’t mean we have to declare jihad back in order to successfully stop the spread of terrorism or to enourage human rights around the world via govt reforms.

Posted by: fauxreal | Oct 31 2004 17:37 utc | 3

Although I am not an expert, I imagine what is going on in the USA is similar to Israel. A right wing party that emphasizes fear and hormonal responses rather than rational analysis and political compromise is in charge. As much as rational people hate it, there are tides of hate and fear sweeping through the US at the instigation of the GOP. Although unintended, due to its leader’s infallible certitude, the US has gotten itself in a Holy War in the Middle East. Holy Wars do not tend to be settled with compromise. Only genocide or pull out by exhausted survivors ends religious wars. Carthage or the Crusades are examples.

Posted by: Jim S | Oct 31 2004 19:45 utc | 5

One aspect of the OBL message is not understood in the US media. By explaining his reasoning and not directly threatening the US he achives legitimacy with many people on the planet who do not support terror or war.
He is binding the Palestine issue and the ruling of US supported despots in the ME to the battle calls in his other videos. This is an understandable motiv for some billion people.
The US has lost international legitimacy by attacking Iraq and Abu Graibh. OBL has won international legitimacy with his reasoning. This is a quite successful development for his movement.
I am not sure he was even aiming at the election. He used the media focus that the election was giving him.
Away from that thought:
The video is supposed to be some 18 minutes long. Only 6 minutes have been shown and transcripted. I wonder what’s in the other 12 minutes.
Watching the video on the AlJazeera website, OBL’s voice seems quite small and not well.
See rememberinggiaps coment on the Open One thread. Some good thoughts on OBL in there.

Posted by: b | Oct 31 2004 20:06 utc | 7

While it’s necessary to deconstruct OBL’s message to try and get a grip on exactly what it is he is saying and who he is saying it to, we have to be sure not to fall into the trap that politicians of all stripes use.
As long as we try and get the measure of these types by what they say rather than what they do, we will be continually confused by the endless contradictions political leaders make as they adjust their message to suit their ‘demographic’.
Looking at the act rather than the words reduces OBL’s speech to an illustration of how weak and impotent his organization has become, a message which few if any political leaders in the developed world much less the US, want to hear. BushCo because they need the spectre of a wrathful and insane terror organization to justify their theft of Iraq’s resources and the Kerry camp don’t want the voters imagining that the current administration has succeeded in destroying this horror.
In fact I suspect that in as much as he can feel regret, OBL regrets the 911 attacks because they were more successful than he imagined (twice he has alluded to this. The first time when explaining to the mullah in Afghanistan in late 2001/early 2002 that the engineering of the buildings caused the massive collapse and the second time in his most recent clip where he argues that Bush’s inaction caused the huge number of casualties). Many Muslims who had previously seen his group as freedom fighters, whose targets had in the main been military forces or government agencies ie embassies, were turned off by the massacre of civilians and OBL hadn’t been counting on the extreme reaction to this attack; the invasion of Afghanistan and obliteration of the Taliban.
So now he is a general without an army, sheltered by tribesmen whose customs make it difficult to expel him but who will be putting him under pressure to keep a low profile. Any more terrorist atrocities and their bastion of freedom from Islamabad would be over run and destroyed by a hunt that Pakistanis would find difficult to object to. I’m sure many of his hosts are less than impressed by this ‘speech’. They will have a tribesman’s contempt for those who place words ahead of actions and will see it as un-necessarily attracting attention to his presence.
There will be a tariff for room and board and someone must be paying it. Maybe they carried sufficient resources from Tora Bora, maybe resources had been left already in case of just that situation. It has been three years now and a lot of tribes people have been killed, all of whose families would have to be paid. Somehow I doubt that Bin Laden is sitting tight like an over-extended trust funder using up his capital reserves. The customs that impel the locals to protect him also put obligations on those being protected and if Bin Laden stops meeting his obligations he will be cast out in a heart beat. Since there has been contact between Bin Laden and his family it would be foolish to discount them as the source of finance. After all Osama is the favored son. There must also be resentment from less favored sons and their families, particularly since the name has been denigrated in all of their favorite playgrounds in Europe and the US.
The real question is whether the Bush regime has been complicit in the sheltering of OBL. Yeah sure they’d love to parade him in front of cameras without a shirt a la COPS but there are plenty of other things they want more: Iraq’s oil for one. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to think that the Bush family would rather maintain their profitable relationship with the Bin Laden family and that this would be a consideration, an item to be factored into the decision making process. One thing we can be sure of; the Bush families ‘special relationship’ with the Bin Ladens will not have been used as a lever to stop support of OBL or even to flush him out.
Just this one tiny but undeniable fact should have made Bush unelectable.

Posted by: Debs in ’04 | Oct 31 2004 21:25 utc | 9

again i am sorry for my incoherence but my health is terrible but i really feel it is necessary at this crucial time to communicate, by any means necessary
I do not see incoherences in your comments r’giap. I wish for your health to get better and -I’m sorry- it will take some time to balance insulin vs. sugar – you will manage that as you have managed many lines of live and thought.
the americans bloody invasions of afghanistan & iraq & their wilful disregard & contempt for the aspiration of the palestinian people are the real construction blocks of a modern combatative armed & unified islam & every day the americans continue their tyranny they create this organisation(s) – & it will be multiple organsisations but it will be created all over the world
Yes, this the core of the problem, palastine and iraq much more than afghanistan – in my view. The danger of afghanistan is heroin and what it will do to neighbouring countries – there are ways to fight that. There are no ways to fight the other two, other than pressing the US to get out of the way. No money for Israel and no troops in Iraq would be a good start.

Posted by: b | Oct 31 2004 23:04 utc | 11

b
thank you – i really try to be concentrated here – it isd the only space i use english & i feel the obligation to speak as frankly as my heart & body will allow but sometimes i feel with mmy illness – the ‘absences’ – that are part & parcel of balancing insulin
the forum we have here – that you have constructed – is of an importance i cannot quite define with words – but it is an element of a community of resistance; in the first instance it is a place to share – which is the absolute contrary to the demands & needs of a mass media. we talk & this they do not want us to do – we challenge at a very basic but necessary level their untruths; as i think you sd where cnn sees hundreds & hundreds of supporters for kerry at a rally – we know it was 80,000 people – & their monopoly slips – & we see that their hold on the truth is very tender indeed
i have met americans for the first time in my life who i would share & would want to share what we have in each of us to give – & this giving here has an absolutely filtering character for me of all the ‘information’ – the corrupt medias would like us to believe
& i thank you for that b & as i have tried to explain to pat many many times our very difference – our very different lives creates a community that even through its virtuality is a proof of a humanism i had thought the world had let slip by
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 31 2004 23:20 utc | 13

“a modern combative armed and unified Islam”
Super – except it’s falling ever further, faster apart. Happens to the best of us.

Posted by: Pat | Oct 31 2004 23:37 utc | 15

on the republican party falling apart at the seams :
Published on Sunday, October 31, 2004 by The Nation
Even Republicans Fear Bush
by John Nichols
 
The most divisive election campaign in recent American history has not merely split the nation along party lines, it has split the Grand Old Party itself. Unfortunately, most Americans are wholly unaware of the loud dissents against Bush that has begun to be heard in Republican circles.
If the United States had major media that covered politics, as opposed to the political spin generated by the Bush White House and the official campaigns of both the Republican president and his Democratic challenger, one of the most fascinating, and significant, stories of the 2004 election season would be the abandonment of the Bush reelection effort by senior Republicans. But this is a story that, for the most part, has gone untold. Scant attention was paid to the revelation that one Republican member of the U.S. Senate, Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee, will refrain from voting for his party’s president — despite the fact that Chafee offered a far more thoughtful critique of George W. Bush’s presidency than “Zig-Zag” Zell Miller, the frothing, Democrat-hating Democrat did when he condemned his party’s nominee. Beyond the minimal attention to Chafee, most media has neglected the powerful, and often poignant, condemnations of Bush by prominent Republicans.
Former Republican members of the U.S. Senate and House, governors, ambassadors, aides to GOP Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush have explicitly endorsed the campaign of Democrat John Kerry. For many of these lifelong Republicans, their vote for Kerry will be a first Democratic vote. But, in most cases, it will not be a hesitant one.
Angered by the Bush administration’s mismanagement of the war in Iraq, record deficits, assaults on the environment and secrecy, the renegade partisans tend to echo the words of former Minnesota Governor Elmer Andersen, who says that, “Although I am a longtime Republican, it is time to make a statement, and it is this: Vote for Kerry-Edwards, I implore you, on November 2.”
Many of the Republicans who are abandoning Bush express sorrow at what the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies in Congress have done to their party: “The fact is that today’s ‘Republican’ Party is one that I am totally unfamiliar with,” writes John Eisenhower. But the deeper motivation is summed up by former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, a Kentucky Republican, who explained in a recent article for the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper that, “For me, as a Republican, I feel that when my party gives me a dangerous leader who flouts the truth, takes the country into an undeclared war and then adds a war on terrorism to it without debate by the Congress, we have a duty to rid ourselves of those who are taking our country on a perilous ride in the wrong direction. If we are indeed the party of Lincoln (I paraphrase his words), a president who deems to have the right to declare war at will without the consent of the Congress is a president who far exceeds his power under our Constitution. I will take John Kerry for four years to put our country on the right path.”
In the end, of course, the vast majority of Republicans will cast their ballots for George w. Bush on Tuesday, just as the vast majority of Democrats will vote for John Kerry. But the Republicans who plan to cross the partisan divide and vote for Kerry have articulated a unique and politically potent indictment of the Bush administration.
Here are a dozen examples of what Republicans are saying about George W. Bush — and John Kerry — as the November 2 election approaches:
“As son of a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.”
— Ambassador John Eisenhower, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece published in The Manchester Union Leader, September 28, 2004.
“The two ‘Say No to Bush’ signs in my yard say it all. The present Republican president has led us into an unjustified war — based on misguided and blatantly false misrepresentations of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. The terror seat was Afghanistan. Iraq had no connection to these acts of terror and was not a serious threat to the United States, as this president claimed, and there was no relation, it’s now obvious, to any serious weaponry. Although Saddam Hussein is a frightful tyrant, he posed no threat to the United States when we entered the war. George W. Bush’s arrogant actions to jump into Iraq when he had no plan how to get out have alienated the United States from our most trusted allies and weakened us immeasurably around the world… This imperialistic, stubborn adherence to wrongful policies and known untruths by the Cheney-Bush administration — and that’s the accurate order — has simply become more than I can stand.”
— Former Minnesota Governor Elmer Andersen, a Republican, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, October 13, 2004. Andersen argued in the piece that, “I am more fearful for the state of this nation than I have ever been — because this country is in the hands of an evil man: Dick Cheney. It is eminently clear that it is he who is running the country, not George W. Bush.”
“The Bush George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naive belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American enemies — a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft.”
— Scott McConnell, executive editor, The American Conservative, endorsing Kerry in the November 8, 2004 issue.
“I am not enamored with John Kerry, but I am frightened to death of George Bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor a government that refuses to supply the Congress with requested information. I am against a government that refuses to tell the country with whom the leaders of our country sat down and determined our energy policy, and to prove how much they want to keep the secret, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court.”
— Former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, Republican from Kentucky, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece that appeared in The Louisville Courier-Journal, October 20, 2004.
“My Republican Party is the party of Theodore Roosevelt, who fought to preserve our natural resources and environment. This president has pursued policies that will cause irreparable damage to our environmental laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink and the public lands we share with future generations.”
— Former Michigan Governor William Milliken, from a statement published in the Traverse City Record Eagle, October 17, 2004.
“As an environmentalist who served as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I know that this administration has turned environmental policy over to lobbyists for the oil, gas and mining interests. On the other hand, I know first-hand of your commitment to a more balanced approach to environmental policy — one where we can have both jobs and profit for industry as well as clean air and water. There is no stronger evidence of this than your outstanding leadership and support in the restoration of the Florida Everglades. John, for each of these reasons I believe President Bush has failed our country and my party. Accordingly, I want you to know that when I go into the booth next Tuesday I am going to cast my vote for you.”
— Former U.S. Senator Bob Smith, Republican from New Hampshire, from an endorsement letter sent to John Kerry, October 28, 2004.
“Nixon was a prince compared to these guys.”
— Former U.S. Representative Pete McCloskey, R-California, from an article in the Palo Alto Weekly, September 8, 2004. McCloskey, who is active with Republicans for Kerry, says of members of the Bush administration, “These people believe God has told them what to do. They’ve high jacked the Republican Party we once knew.”
“The war is just a misbegotten thing that’s spiraling down. It’s a matter of conscience for me. After 9/11, the whole world was behind us. That’s all gone now. That’s been squandered. Now we’ve made the entire Muslim world hate us. And for what? For what?”
— Former State Senator Al Meiklejohn, Republican from Colorado and World War II combat veteran, explaining his decision to support John Kerry in an interview with The Denver Post, September 19, 2004.
“We need a leader who is really dedicated to creating millions of high-paying jobs all across the country.”
— Former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca, who campaigned for George W. Bush in 2000 and appeared in television advertisements for the Republican Party of Michigan that year. Iacocca, who complains that under Bush deficit spending is “getting out of hand,” endorsing Kerry on June 24, 2004.
“In a dangerous epoch — made more so by a president who sees the world in stark black and white because simplicity polls better and fits into sound bites — John Kerry may seem out of place. He is, in fact, in exactly the right place at the right time to lead our country.”
— Tim Ashby, who served during the Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush administrations as director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean for the U.S. Commerce Department and acting deputy assistant Secretary of Commerce for the Western Hemisphere, endorsing Kerry in a Seattle Times, October 14, 2004.
” I have always been, and I still am, a registered Republican, but I shall enthusiastically vote for John Kerry for president on November 2… If the Bush administration stays in power four more years, it will pack the Supreme Court with neocons who reject the idea that the Constitution is a living document designed to protect the freedom of the citizens.”
— Anne Morton Kimberly, widow of former Republican National Committee chair Rogers C.B. Morton, Secretary of the Interior during the Nixon administration and Secretary of Commerce during the Ford administration, endorsing Kerry in a an opinion piece that appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal, October 14, 2004.
“Mainstream Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility, internationalism, environmental protection, the rights of women, and putting middle-class families ahead of big business lobbyists. Moderate Republicans should not be asked to swallow the right-wing policies of George W. Bush.”
— Clay Myers, who was Oregon’s Republican Secretary of State for 10 years and the state’s Treasure, endorsing Kerry at a press conference for Oregon Republicans for Kerry, September 1, 2004.
“The current administration has run the largest deficits in U.S. history, incurring massive debts that our children and grandchildren will have to pay. Two and a half million people have lost their jobs; trillions have been wiped out of savings and retirement accounts. The income of Americans has declined two years in a row, the first time since the IRS began keeping records. George W. Bush will be the first president since Hoover to have a net job loss under his watch… President Bush wanted to be judged as the CEO president, it is time to say, ‘you have failed, and you’re fired.”
— William Rutherford, former State Treasurer of Oregon, endorsing Kerry as a press conference for Oregon Republicans for Kerry, September 1, 2004.
“I served 20 years in the Ohio General Assembly as Republican. People have asked me why I oppose George w. Bush for president. My first response is, ‘He is incompetent.’ His behavior, his bad judgment, his record, all demonstrate a failure as president. He certainly misled the country into a no-win war in Iraq. Following his preemptive invasion, he totally misjudged the consequences of his action. He made a bad situation worse, fomenting widespread terrorism, all done with a frightful loss of lives and money.”
— Former Ohio State Representative John Galbraith, a Republican legislator for 20 years, endorsing Kerry in a letter to The Toledo Blade, September 28, 2004.
” Before the current campaign, it might have been argued that at least in affirming the importance of faith and respecting those who profess it the administration had embraced traditional conservative views. But in the wake of the Swift Boat ads attacking John Kerry, even this argument can no longer be maintained. As an elder of the Presbyterian Church, I found that those ads were not at all in the Christian tradition. John McCain rightly condemned them as dishonest and dishonorable. The president should have, too. That he did not undermines his credibility on questions of faith.
Some say it’s just politics. But that’s the whole point. More is expected of people of faith than “just politics.”
The fact is that the Bush administration might better be called radical or romantic or adventurist than conservative. And that’s why real conservatives are leaning toward Kerry.”
— Clyde Prestowitz, counselor to the secretary of commerce in the Reagan administration and an elder of the Presbyterian Church, from “The Conservative Case for Kerry,” published in the Providence Journal and other newspapers, October 15, 2004.

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 1 2004 0:10 utc | 17

You do occasionally make me smile, rgiap.

Posted by: Pat | Nov 1 2004 0:25 utc | 19

 Colin Powell Believes U.S. is Losing Iraq war
    Salon.com
    Sunday 31 October 2004
    Secretary of State Colin Powell has privately confided to friends in recent weeks that the Iraqi insurgents are winning the war, according to Newsweek. The insurgents have succeeded in infiltrating Iraqi forces “from top to bottom,” a senior Iraqi official tells Newsweek in tomorrow’s issue of the magazine, “from decision making to the lower levels.”
    This is a particularly troubling development for the U.S. military, as it prepares to launch an all-out assault on the insurgent strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi, since U.S. Marines were counting on the newly trained Iraqi forces to assist in the assault. Newsweek reports that “American military trainers have been frantically trying to assemble sufficient Iraqi troops” to fight alongside them and that they are “praying that the soldiers perform better than last April, when two battalions of poorly trained Iraqi Army soldiers refused to fight.”
    If the Fallujah offensive fails, Newsweek grimly predicts, “then the American president will find himself in a deepening quagmire on Inauguration Day.”

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 1 2004 1:45 utc | 21

As far as the election thing goes…. time to quote Yeats:
“The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”

Posted by: slothrop | Nov 1 2004 4:16 utc | 23

To last six posters:
Comrade Stalin, in his infinite wisdom, has found educational positions for each of you at our state-of-the-art gold mining facility at Kolyma.
@Pat: Cato Institute has agreed to a five-year sabbatical.
@RGiap: There are excellent medical facilities at this site.
@DeAnander: The Soviet state does not discriminate against Menshevik intellectuals.
@Slothrop: Bring mittens, Yeats, and Elements of Style.
Sedans will arrive for you in ten minutes.
L. Beria
For the Central Committee

Posted by: Anonymous | Nov 1 2004 5:16 utc | 25

I have to agree with DeAnander…

Posted by: vbo | Nov 1 2004 6:49 utc | 27

@deAnander they’re one & the same – the far left of the xDem. party these days is somewhere bet. Eisenhower & Goldwater. (By the party, they of course to not mean we frogs. They mean anyone the party allows to represent it.) I’m not sure if Kerry is to the right or left of Goldwater. He’s to the right of him on abortion & gay rights, & those are the stances party apologists like to cite as proof of Kerry’s “liberalism”. Also, I’ve been watching in this election as the Repug. party has been taken over by the FaRTs (Fascists, Reactionaries & Theocrats), the xDem. party has simply moved to fill the void left by the old Repugs party.
I just read a touching art. in Intervention Mag. “In Toledo w/Max Cleland”. I think he would have been a far better V.P., at least judging by his humanity & disgust w/charade of the 9-11 Commission. Anyway, it was noted there that diff. bet. 2 Candidates is that Bu$hCo ignores/denies existence of all the Ohioans thrown out of jobs ‘cuz of Dictatorship of Capital that’s replaced our democracy; Forbes-Heinz///Kerry acknowledges them & will try to do something about them. Okay, so one party isn’t mentally ill. That’s a refreshing start; but then about policy…..don’t hold your breath while waiting for factories to be shut down in China & return to Ohio.

Posted by: jj | Nov 1 2004 9:35 utc | 29

In the full translation of the tape, Joe, OBL does declare that any state in the US carried by Bush in this election will be an enemy state, whereas states that go for Kerry can consider themselves safe from attack.
Let’s see… New Yorkers and Californians and residents of Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusettes, Maryland, etc., can breathe easy. Virginians, Georgians, Texans, and residents of Colorado, Arizona, Alabama, Kansas, etc., are on notice that Osama is displeased with their politics.
Floridians, Ohioans, Iowans, and Pennsylvanians have much to think about.
Go blue on November 2 or else.

Posted by: Pat | Nov 1 2004 11:48 utc | 31

it is absolutely self evident that that is the ‘state’ – obl is talking about
sometimes pat you give me the giggles. thinking of obl regarding cnn’s fraudelent voting maps & making tactical decisions from that- it would seem cnn’s own commentators have difficulty in interpretation
what is apparent though is only the reelection of bush benefits obl or his dutiful disciples
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 1 2004 14:31 utc | 33

Check out memri.org on the mistranslation. Makes for interesting threat analysis.
Most people aren’t going to know, and the tape itself isn’t getting a whole lot of attention because focus is on the elections. And, really, how many Americans care what OBL says? His lecturing is, from their point of view, completely offensive and his threats after three quiet years here in the US induce more scorn and mockery than anxiety. Many, many Americans share rgiap’s view of al Qaeda as essentially impotent.
To be honest, the two video tapes make me nervous (even without an implied threat against red states, one of which I inhabit) but I believe I belong to a small minority.

Posted by: Pat | Nov 1 2004 15:06 utc | 35

It is a shame that the U.S. media is so cowed and/or complicit in the crimes of the two Bush administrations that a mass murderer of Americans gets the attention he does not deserve, as a teller of truth, to try to inform Americans about their own government. (and not all he says is truth, obviously.)
But sadly, isn’t he telling some hard truths?
More importantly, isn’t he taking America’s claims to be a democracy at its word and telling the American people that they are responsible for the actions of their govt, no matter who is in power?
Again, Americans will not hear him because of their fury — because of the need to believe in the rightness of all our actions, no matter whether this is true or not.
From my perspective, it’s analogous to agreeing with the need to deal with terrorism, as Bush also claims, but not agreeing with the methods, nor the crimes he has committed in the name of dealing with terror, nor the extension of the need to deal with terror into an ideology of corporate ownership of parts of the Muslim world, disguised as democracy for the gullible in the U.S.
I find, more and more, that people like Camus (who, strangely enough, is featured in Salon today…in an article that isn’t all that great, but nevertheless does touch on Camus’ importance in his view of revolution in The Rebel) reflect my position.
And Hannah Arendt
[Arendt] “was convinced that, in the same way that “just” wars cannot be tolerated in the modern world because of their destructive consequences for humankind and the global environment so, too, are violent revolutions no longer
warrantable — no matter how good the cause.
Her fundamental objection was to the inevitable long-term desensitizing effects of violent means on the people who resort to them. It prepares such would-be leaders and followers only for totalitarianism, she said. Like John Dewey and many other naturalistic philosophers (whom, unfortunately, she seems never to have read) she recognized a continuity of means and ends.
This is the insight that we are shaped irrevocably by the paths we follow in pursuit of our goals — so much so that those goals may be forever lost to us in the ugly future determined by our chosen means. She recognized the harm that comes from a belief that humans can “know” in some absolute sense that their chosen goal is an ultimate “good”– simply because their ideology defines it as the inevitable course of Nature or History or of God’s will.
She felt that this particular belief has always provided religious fanatics and violent revolutionaries with their dangerous justification for accepting evil means in the pursuit of desirable ends. The only real revolution occurring in modern times, she ventured, is that of secularism, whereby humans are slowly freeing themselves from the fears engendered by
long-established — and often violent — mythologies.”
–This describes the predicament of bin Laden. He has become the very thing he sought to eradicate. This also describes the predicament of Bush, who uses religion, just as bin Laden does, to justify actions that cannot be justified by religion without making that religion an instrument of oppression rather than individual salvation or ethics. This describes the Terror in Revolutionary France, and McCarthy is 1950s America.
And so, if Americans refuse to deal with their own foreign policy without resorting to claims of religious destiny, Americans are like those Muslims who use their religion to justify the crudest form of jihad.
No wonder “post-Christian” nations, to use Scalia’s term, want to sit this one out.

Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 1 2004 15:28 utc | 37

pat
you are a little trickster
memri.org is without doubt a fellow traveller of the middle east desk at langley
with theirr partisan references from the worst of cold war warriors & a highly important reference from :
“You know, you’ve got things in the Saudi papers running now that thanks to the Middle East Media Research Institute we can read in English translation.”
– FOX News, May 16, 2003
& from podhoretz, lewis et al
i think if you go to a truly unpartisan reading of the arabaic – words of obl – you will find that state – is STATE – & i would not panic so – the faux cleric has at this moment little ability or even support to carry out operations in america
it is publicity, very bad publicity & as walter cronkite pointed out on larry king – seems to come completely borne from the imagination of karl rove
still steel
perhaps obl wants to take his retirement down in florida with the rest of the gangster

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 1 2004 15:53 utc | 39

from the above guardian article referenced by fauxreal :
The second thing that makes me uneasy is that the stories selected by Memri for translation follow a familiar pattern: either they reflect badly on the character of Arabs or they in some way further the political agenda of Israel. I am not alone in this unease.
Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Washington Times: “Memri’s intent is to find the worst possible quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as widely as possible.”
Memri might, of course, argue that it is seeking to encourage moderation by highlighting the blatant examples of intolerance and extremism. But if so, one would expect it – for the sake of non-partisanship – t o publicise extremist articles in the Hebrew media too.
Although Memri claims that it does provide translations from Hebrew media, I can’t recall receiving any.
Evidence from Memri’s website also casts doubt on its non-partisan status. Besides supporting liberal democracy, civil society, and the free market, the institute also emphasises “the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel”.
That is what its website used to say, but the words about Zionism have now been deleted. The original page, however, can still be found in internet archives.
The reason for Memri’s air of secrecy becomes clearer when we look at the people behind it. The co-founder and president of Memri, and the registered owner of its website, is an Israeli called Yigal Carmon.
Mr – or rather, Colonel – Carmon spent 22 years in Israeli military intelligence and later served as counter-terrorism adviser to two Israeli prime ministers, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin.
Retrieving another now-deleted page from the archives of Memri’s website also throws up a list of its staff. Of the six people named, three – including Col Carmon – are described as having worked for Israeli intelligence.
Among the other three, one served in the Israeli army’s Northern Command Ordnance Corps, one has an academic background, and the sixth is a former stand-up comedian.
Col Carmon’s co-founder at Memri is Meyrav Wurmser, who is also director of the centre for Middle East policy at the Indianapolis-based Hudson Institute, which bills itself as “America’s premier source of applied research on enduring policy challenges”.
The ubiquitous Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon’s defence policy board, recently joined Hudson’s board of trustees.
Ms Wurmser is the author of an academic paper entitled Can Israel Survive Post-Zionism? in which she argues that leftwing Israeli intellectuals pose “more than a passing threat” to the state of Israel, undermining its soul and reducing its will for self-defence.
In addition, Ms Wurmser is a highly qualified, internationally recognised, inspiring and knowledgeable speaker on the Middle East whose presence would make any “event, radio or television show a unique one” – according to Benador Associates, a public relations company which touts her services.

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 1 2004 16:03 utc | 41

Nice try.
OBL just mentions as example that he didn’t hit Sweden for an obvious reason.
MEMRI is just as reliable as far as Middle East is concerned as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is reliable concerning Jewish people. It’s a filthy scum of propaganda by wingnut Likudniks of the worst kind. To put shortly what RGiap quotes, MEMRI just deals with hate-speech – the same way anti-semites pick some bits of the Torah to convince people the Jews are blood-thirsty twisted people bent on world domination.
Then, I had supposed that by now people would have some clue as to what to expect from some posters here.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Nov 1 2004 17:18 utc | 43

fauxreal:
excellent post. one observation, though. This describes the predicament of bin Laden. He has become the very thing he sought to eradicate. This supposes that obl has any real throne to usurp. His power lies now in the expropriation of his image by friends and enemies alike. The bigger “problem” you allude to is the way in which aggrieved people confront U.S. power defined as the latter is by a kind of eschatological certainty that the means justify the ends of its power. I do not believe obl’s role in this struggle, his migration into sign, guarantees that myopic radicalism will merely replace western colonialism. Why must this be the case? This is where I disagree w/ rgiap. I think the threat of the endless displacement of tyranny by tyranny is true in a world in which the means of violence are concentrated. Now, one person w/ one bomb can change the course of global history. In a world such as this, a tyrrant’s rule is ever tenuous. This is both a terrifying fact, but also augers some hope for the permanent decentralization of power.

Posted by: slothrop | Nov 1 2004 17:42 utc | 45

BTW, from the contrarian/libertarian site whatreallyhappened.com [disclaimer: I disagree w/editor Rivero on practically everything except the folly and essential badness of the Bush Regime] comes a conservative/libertarian reaction to the Osama video:

You and I are trapped behind Homeland Security, hassled at airports, spied upon, frisked, and confined to “Free speech zones”, while this latest Osama, clearly rested and healthy, goes where he will, into TV studios, and is able to send taunting video tapes with impunity.
When the Osamas of the world are free while we who pay the bills are prisoners, this must be counted a complete failure by the administration which claims so many extraordinary powers under the banner of the “war on terror”.

If many Americans are feeling like this then the tape may well be a serious own goal by the Rove team.

Posted by: DeAnander | Nov 1 2004 18:06 utc | 47

Folks calm down, I have cited Memri myself knowing that it is a disinformation outfit. They mostly translate selected articles from the arabian press, very special selected articles to be sure, and in 95% of the cases these are translated correctly. This is a case of the other 5% I guess.
Just like DEBKAfile, Memri is an outfit of Israeli/Neocon interests. Often their information is correct -so you get lured into their game- and the next moment the place some lie purly in partisan interest.
Think the New York Times and the articles of Judith Miller – similar case in my view. But it doesn’t stop me from citing Krugman’s columns.
Think of my RBN pieces that have captured some of you.
I think it is dangerous to interpret OBLs message any further until the whole 18 minutes are out and transcripted by someone neutral. We just don´t know who edited this in whatever interest and should be careful to draw conclusions.
Thread analyse: AlQaida will hit where they a.) can b.) it has publicity value for them c.) where the economic negative effect for the US is maximized. That´s not going to be Ohio no matter how Ohio votes. Los Angeles port is much more likely as are major oil choke points in the Middle East.

Posted by: b | Nov 1 2004 19:50 utc | 49

Thanks dk, very, very interesting:
Some points from the first read:
As I suspected above, OBL operates very consiesly in the economic realm. He knows where to get the US

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the Mujahideen, bled Russia for ten years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
…
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
…
And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. (When they pointed out that) for example, al-Qaida spent $500 000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost – according to the lowest estimate – more than 500 billion dollars.
Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.
As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahideen recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the blee[d]-until-bankruptcy plan – with Allah’s permission.

He plays the social revolutionary card inside the US (weel he misestimates the US listerns here I guess)

But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.
So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future.
…
And Bush’s hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.
…
Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of its sons, also for money.

He puts out some choices

Finally, it behooves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.
Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say, “How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision.” It is as if they were telling you, the people of America, “Hold to account those who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from others’ mistakes,” And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry, “Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny.”

If there would be a movement in the US like in the sixties, many would read that speech and agree. Today I don´t know if there is any interest.

Posted by: b | Nov 1 2004 20:42 utc | 51

blackie
i’ve got your headache too – i don’t know whether its the insulin – winter or its pats vision – of bin laden in a cave somewhere in pakistan watching his dvd of fahrenheit 911 with ayman al-zawahari dressed up demurely in drag as modern muslim housewife tasking a map to the wall of the cave follwing diligently cnn voting maps in red & blue & the two of them getting cosy while imaginig idaho, messing with minneapolis, going crazy with chicago, maxing out in minessota, taking down texas, dressing down dallas etc etc & the two of them getting cuddly as all good islamic fighters do praising allah for this & for that – & both of them wearing their yves st laurent eyeglasses, montbllancs in hand noting very carefully all the fluctuations – in the swiiiiiiiiiiiiing staaaaaaates & noting well the menace of tewwoooooooowism – the threat that this contractors son & the egyptian doctor driving themselves into erotic bliss with all their infinite possibilities – being reminded by hassan at the door that they are in fact in a cave in the assehole of the universe – their followers not up to much these days except to praise allah for this & that & watching the secular resistance – the national battle for iraq not giving them too much credit & their good sons – really more friendly with the iranians who are a little smarter – a little more cunning in the ways of the world & who are not reduced to caves…..& so they go off to bed arm in arm awaiting armageddon as is the duty of all messianic commanders in chief of the all enveloping armies of islam
well the vision gets a little lurid…… & i’ve also a headache of collosal proportions hoping i haven’t been poisoned as arafat obviouslly has been – waiting for tommorow & hoping…..`
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 1 2004 22:01 utc | 53

waiting for tommorow & hoping
I’ll try to vote again for you.

Posted by: slothrop | Nov 1 2004 22:33 utc | 55

i too am full of nervous tension. smoking, going upstairs, then down. can’t work, checking the polls over and over. just rented and watched control room. i swear i will explode if kerry doesn’t make it. i am good for nothing and have been like this for too long. having stupid conversations w/ friends like ‘do you know ANYONE voting for bush?’ one more day.in total shock mode.

Posted by: annie | Nov 1 2004 23:43 utc | 57

we are shaped irrevocably by the paths we follow in pursuit of our goals — so much so that those goals may be forever lost to us in the ugly future determined by our chosen means
That quote from the article on Arendt stays in my mind because I think it explains what went wrong in this country years ago when
Critchfield decided to recruit
Gehlenafter WW II and thus pervert U.S. intelligence operations.
…the CIA papers raise critical questions about American foreign policy and the origins of the Cold War.
The decision to recruit Nazi operatives had a negative impact on U.S.-Soviet relations and set the stage for Washington’s tolerance of human rights’ abuses and other criminal acts in the name of anti-Communism. With that fateful sub-rosa embrace, the die was cast for a litany of antidemocratic CIA interventions around the world.
Some of these same Nazis were in Chili to help with Pinochet’s regime, along with some members of the CIA. Would the School of the Americas have existed without this “ends justifying means” collaboration?
Secret documents declassified by the Clinton administration show that the CIA’s collaboration with the ex-Nazis was not merely a marriage of convenience. It was more like a deal with the devil.
The documents reveal that Gehlen had hired and protected hundreds of Nazi war criminals. The more notorious of these Hitler henchmen included Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s right-hand man in orchestrating the Final Solution, and Emil Augsburg, who directed the Wansee Institute where the Final Solution was formulated and who served in a unit that specialized in the extermination of Jews. Another was the former Gestapo chief Heinrich Muller, Adolf Eichmann’s immediate superior whose signature appears on orders written in 1943 for the deportation of 45,000 Jews to Auschwitz for killing.
Furthermore, the Gehlen Org was so thoroughly penetrated by Soviet spies that CIA operations in Eastern Europe often ended in the murder of its agents. To top it off, the Org fed the CIA a steady diet of misinformation that fanned the flames of East-West hostility – and thus assured the Org the continued patronage of Washington.
Many historians of the CIA’s early days have concluded that letting the ex-Nazis in was the CIA’s original sin, a moral failure that also resulted in the distortion of the intelligence given U.S. policymakers during the crucial early years of the Cold War.
Critchfield was also responsible for putting Saddam Hussein in power.

Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 2 2004 0:41 utc | 59

@fauxreal what went wrong in this country years ago when Critchfield decided to recruit Gehlen after WW II and thus pervert U.S. intelligence operations
imho you could not be more right. the decision to salvage and recycle the Nazi nets was a deeply corrupt and deeply corrupting move, and its poison has spread and spread… it’s a history that needs to be told, an antidote to the Disney cartoon version of WWII that all Amurkans are fed from grade school on.

Posted by: DeAnander | Nov 2 2004 1:20 utc | 61

Headaches: I am not even prone to headaches. Reading the above, I keep seeing the framed letter signed by Richard Helms that my father proudly has hanging on the wall praising him for an award for his photography. I grew up with a father who went directly from OSS to CIA and could never talk about what he did at work but who to this day (in his 80s) takes the most achingly beautiful and sensitive photographs. Note to parents: I took vacation tomorrow to be a poll watcher and to do my little part to upset all he believes in.

Posted by: beq | Nov 2 2004 1:34 utc | 63

headaches, neckaches, delirium transates itself into three hours at the phone bank cheerily reminding ohioans to vote tomorrow, and when i sit still for a moment and think about the enormity of tomorrow there is the ache of a giant pit in my stomach. kerry MUST win, must. cautiously optimistic as i am, now that the final hours approach it frightens me to realize i just do not know what to expect tomorrow, what will they do next? and what about the day after tomorrow? no matter which way you slice it there is an apocalytic aspect that is chilling.

Posted by: conchita | Nov 2 2004 2:45 utc | 65

Angleton and William Colby’s disagreements over the future of Angleton’s counter-intelligence program was the basis for Orchids For Mother, by Aaron Latham, editor of New York magazine at the time. More reading on Angleton, counter-intelligence, and literature at Of Moles and Molehunters.

Posted by: b real | Nov 2 2004 4:27 utc | 67

Otherwise it’s a crash course in glossolatia.

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 2 2004 8:27 utc | 69

@hannahK — the old catchphrase used to be “The Mighty Wurlitzer,” i.e. the stable of reliable, tame media organs which CIA could mobilise to spread their latest viral meme. I think we are now seeing several Mighty Wurlitzers in the media realm; Wurmser’s is just one of them. There’s the Murdoch empire, the Black empire, and so forth.

Posted by: DeAnander | Nov 2 2004 17:56 utc | 71

anna missed
count on it

Posted by: slothrop | Nov 3 2004 4:35 utc | 73

“I have seen the mermaids singing, each to each….
I do not think they will sing to me.”
fuck it. I’m going to drink the last of this cheap shiraz and sleep, me droogs…

Posted by: slothrop | Nov 3 2004 4:43 utc | 75