The Observer in London yesterday published what they argue is a new letter from Osama bin Laden. It emerged on a website previously used by al Qaeda to communicate messages and is being circulated on the web and among British Islamists. The Observer hedges its bets by saying that “although there is no way to confirm the authenticity of the letter beyond all doubt, senior Arab journalists in the Middle Eastern media believe the letter is from bin Laden. ‘It is an extraordinary glimpse into his mind,’ one told The Observer.” Who knows? But in some respects, the authenticity of the letter as Osama is less interesting than the fact that even if produced by another Islamist figure or entity, it conveys a very lucid account of what the enemy believes. The “Letter To America” is part Islamist pep-talk, part warning. The author is fighting for the imposition of Islamic law throughout the world. At one point, he addresses America directly:
What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
(a) The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them – peace be upon them all.
Complete submission to Sharia law. Got that? He is therefore fighting any constitutional arrangement anywhere that provides for freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, separation of Church and state or indeed anything that is not approved by a clerical elite. So that’s why they have such an issue with the Constitution of the United States.
SEIN KAMPF: But the other obvious facet of this letter is its Hitlerian anti-Semitism. Palestine is the first issue raised:
The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals… The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its price, and pay for it heavily.
He means American citizens who, by virtue of living in a democracy, are held personally accountable for the actions of their government in every respect. (I wonder if this means that subjects of Islamic tyrannies are protected from terrorism.) But, of course, America is but a cipher for the real power-brokers. Drum roll, please:
Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy.
And then there’s this spectacular medievalism:
You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions. Yet you build your economy and investments on Usury. As a result of this, in all its different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have then taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense; precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you against.
As a kicker, there’s this assertion: “The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites.” So we have a policy designed to provide living space for “pure Arabs,” while exterminating the Jews. Hitler should sue these guys for plagiarism.
KULTURKAMPF: And then there’s the indictment of America on the grounds already laid out by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. We are a moral sewer. Sexual freedom, in particular, is anathema, as it is anathema to most political authoritarians. The way in which free human beings can explore their lives and identities in the private realm of sexual interaction is always threatening to tyrants. Orwell saw the attempt to kill love and sex as central to the totalitarian experiment. The Islamists are no exception. They make our religious scolds look like New Age therapists. What they would do to women who live sexual lives of their own choosing or gay men who do not live in fear or shame is obvious: we would be exterminated. Got that? That’s why it’s simply incredible to me that socially liberal Americans do not find this war to be of paramount concern. The theocratic right can at least agree with some of what bin Laden says. The following, for example, could easily have been said by Pat Robertson:
Who can forget your President Clinton’s immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he ‘made a mistake’, after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?… You are a nation that practices the trade of sex in all its forms, directly and indirectly. Giant corporations and establishments are established on this, under the name of art, entertainment, tourism and freedom, and other deceptive names you attribute to it… And because of all this, you have been described in history as a nation that spreads diseases that were unknown to man in the past. Go ahead and boast to the nations of man, that you brought them AIDS as a Satanic American Invention.
If a domestic member of the Christian right had said this, the Left would be all over them. But when Islamists say it, we look the other way.
KILLING FORTUYN: We now know the motive. It wasn’t animal rights. It was opposition to Pim Fortuyn’s criticism of unassimilated Islamic immigrants. It was an assassination made possible by the fusion of the multi-culti left and the medieval religious right – a fusion that threatens the very future of a free and democratic Europe.
SAN FRANCISCO VALUES: “I would argue that all cultures and civilizations need a force of change, liberalism, and a force of stability, conservatism, to continue to grow. We San Franciscans are innovators in the world of business, culture and yes politics. Like any experimental lab some of the things we create fail to work in the practical day-to-day world. However every country needs such places where new ideas are tested and the edges of personal freedom and social accountability are explored. A San Francisco Democrat” is not a pejorative phrase to me. My “San Francisco values” are not those of the knee-jerk far left, they are of innovation, social and political creativity and personal freedom. I hope Nancy Pelosi will instill some of those ideas in the Democratic party.” – this, the case against Ahnold, why “eagles” are inadequate, and more on the Letters Page.
CAMPUS ANTI-SEMITISM WATCH: “Eighty-one countries are represented among the dead and missing in the September 11 disaster. So far, not one Israeli citizen has been listed among the victims. Is it possible that the complex of buildings housing the global center of international business, banking and commerce contained no Israeli citizens on September 11, on a working day morning? … Under these circumstances the probability that the Israeli Mossad learned of the September 11 attack prior to September 11 looms large The fact that no Israeli citizen was a vict
im of the Towers’ disaster and the report that Israeli citizens were forewarned looms even larger. This probability diminishes the charge of direct Israeli responsibility for the attack and the racist assumption that Arabs are not intelligent enough or clever enough or technically equipped enough to have executed the very intricate plan with such accuracy. But this probability does raise the very serious question that if the Israeli Mossad knew of the plan and considered it serious enough to warn Israeli citizens to stay away from the Towers on September 11, why were U.S. officials not informed? Or, were they?” – David Graham Du Bois, professor of Afro-American studies at UMass, Amherst. Via Bill Herbert. Hey, Harvard’s English Department! Give that guy a job!
NEW YORK TIMES CORRECTION WATCH: Another beaut yesterday:
The Slough Journal article yesterday, about Princess Anne’s guilty plea to charges of having lost control of her dog, which bit two children, misstated the timing of what historians say was the most recent previous criminal conviction of a senior member of the royal family. In that case, Charles I was beheaded in 1649 – after the English Civil War, not on the eve of it.
If Charles I had been beheaded before the Civil War, wouldn’t that have made the war a little, er, superfluous? Again: high-school history.
GAY ROBOTS: There’s an epidemic.
BIAS AT THE BBC: Yep, there’s a whole blog now devoted to scrutinizing the Beeb’s bias. Enjoy!
The Dish 