Osama the parasite

There's nothing surprising about Osama bin Laden's appropriation of left-wing and even environmentalist rhetoric in a recent video, according to Brendan O'Neill. (Assuming it was really Osama, of course.) Bin Laden has been doing this kind of thing - O'Neill compares it to blogging (hey!) - for years:

So many of bin Laden’s statements are peppered with references to ‘intellectuals’, ‘thinkers’, ‘analysts’, ‘diplomats’, ‘writers’ and so on - most of them Western, rather than Eastern mystics, and all of whose work he has ripped off. Indeed, he gives the game away with two statements in particular. In the first (on 29 October 2004) he advises the White House to read ‘Robert Fisk, who is a fellow [Westerner] and a co-religionist of yours, but one whom I consider unbiased’. Indeed, he ‘dares’ the White House to ‘interview [Fisk], so that he could explain to the American people everything he has learned from us about the reasons for our struggle’. Note that this Islamic warrior doesn’t encourage the White House to read the Koran if they want to know the truth, but Robert Fisk: the Independent columnist who is known for his (often shrill) anti-war arguments.

[...]

Bin Laden’s cynical shift from anti-Crusader to Bush-basher is summed up in the contrast between a statement made on 3 November 2001 and one made on 29 October 2004. In the first he talks in broad terms about the Crusader West, including the United Nations, and how they are trying to reconquer Islamic lands; in the second, made three years later, he barks on about Bush, Bush, Bush, this evil man and his evil family who are trying to bleed the world dry. His political posturing is very clearly and directly shaped by changes among the oppositional left in the West, which transformed between 9/11 and Iraq into a narrowly anti-Bush camp, laying the blame for the world’s ill at the foot of one man.

Bin Laden’s reliance on Western thought is most clear in his current transformation into an environmentalist. Global warming is the main issue through which Western activists and commentators make their claims on government today. The political system in the West is increasingly oriented around the issue of climate change. Western leaders decree that their main aim is to protect the planet from destruction, while Western radical activism now consists largely of accusing these leaders of not doing enough to protect the planet. Bin Laden has clearly spotted this, and is cynically and opportunistically using the climate change issue to boost his authority. The Koran or traditional political complaints about Western imperialism are nothing compared with the legitimacy conferred by being Concerned About Global Warming.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at September 14, 2007 01:24 PM