Osama is back and looking healthy

Osama bin Laden made his first televised appearance in over a year yesterday, looking healthy and spouting his rhetoric. The pundits immediately came down on one side or the other in the debate over whom this appearance will help the most in the Presidential election. Will it Bush re-elected, or will it allow Kerry to pull off the upset?

Some pundits argue that because Bush is seen as stronger on the anti-terrorism issue, he will most greatly benefit. Others argue that bin Laden's appearance provides visual evidence of Kerry's ongoing argument that Bush has failed to capture or kill America's number one enemy (bin Laden) while embroiling our troops in a continuing struggle against insurgents in a war we need not have fought if diplomacy had been relied upon--after all, we have demonstrated that the diplomatic solution had worked to disarm Saddam, we just didn't know it until we got there!

I would argue that bin Laden's appearance proves my argument--al Qaeda wants Bush to win re-election because they know that he can be more easily manipulated because of his tendency to react emotionally rather than rationally. Of course, I think bin Laden is a smart enough guy (or he is surrounded by smart enough advisors) to realize that most Americans have a tendency to react emotionally as well--in his mind, then, this means that his appearance at the eleventh hour before the election will guarantee a victory for Bush. Let us all hope that al Qaeda has underestimated American's ability for rational thought!

Here's my prediction--if Bush wins, America will be attacked again within ten months of his inauguration, perhaps not within our borders, but certainly a MAJOR attack against our citizens. Al Qaeda will make this attack because they have been able to anticipate Bush's response--bin Laden's rhetoric has repeatedly been proven true by the actions of this administration.

Bin Laden had hoped with the attacks of 9/11 that the U.S. would invade Afghanistan and find itself embroiled in the same type of war that the Soviets faced in the 1980s in that country. Little could bin Laden have anticipated that we would attack Iraq, a country that had no ties to the 9/11 attacks, but which WAS a sovereign Muslim nation with vast oil reserves that bin Laden and al Qaeda could then point to and say to the rest of the Muslim world, "See what we have been saying about the Americans? They want to control Arab and Muslim lands (and thus Arabs and Muslims) so that they can control oil. What have I told you? We must rise up against the arrogance of the Americans and defeat their imperial designs against our Muslim brothers and sisters!" If you don't believe what I am saying, read Imperial Hubris by Anonymous or either of the books by Robert Baer. Apparently, Chalmers Johnson has made many of the same arguments as these two men as well. All three of these writers have experience with the Middle East through their work in the CIA!

My argument with this post, however, is just to say that you should NOT let bin Laden's rhethoric affect the way you were planning to vote. Perhaps he hoped that he would be able to change the outcome of the U.S. election with his message, but I think more than that bin Laden wanted to emphasize to the citizens of the United States that our policies in the Arab/Muslim world are what he despises about us. He wants us to understand that it is our policies that have brought al Qaeda and their allied groups to hate us, and that we can change our policies toward the Muslim world regardless of whom we elect as President. It is up to us to make our policies throughout the world more fair and more respectful of all cultures--not seeking to impose our own will on everyone else, but seeking to work in international cooperation for the good of the world.