Could it be for real? Who knows?
I'm sure there will be those who will make a great deal of hay over the rhetorical similarity of some of it to Chomskyite Indymedia-type "anti-Imperialist" claptrap. I'll leave it to someone else to try to come up with the wittiest way to make this relatively trivial and banal observation. (To my surprise, and to his credit, Andrew Sullivan has resisted the temptation: his long post on this letter is eloquent, clarifying and utterly non-trivial.)
If nothing else, this Osama or pseudo-Osama has presented us with fodder for a thousand cheap high school debate society gags, similar to that provided by Hitler's vegetarianism, e.g., "in other words, like Osama bin Laden, you believe that the US isn't doing enough to prevent global warming," or "so Rush, would you say you agree with Osama bin Laden that Bill Clinton's escape from punishment for his immoral acts in the Oval office is the worst event in our history...?"
Trivia aside, the biggest surprise about this letter, for me, is its lucidity. The religious stuff sounds completely wacko, like that sort of thing always does; but it is possible to follow it. The anti-Imperialist stuff is preposterous, but far more clearly-stated than I'm used to seeing from home-grown anti-Americans: if Gore Vidal ever learned to express himself half as clearly, he'd probably be much more effective as a self-styled "enemy of the state." It has a certain "all of your base are belong to us" quality, evoking a Surrender Earthlings message delivered by movie Martians. Yet, though risible and absurdly implausible, the demand for, the expectation of, "complete submission" to Sharia law, on pain of death, is nonetheless far more disturbing than it ought to be: because they really mean it, you see?
It's puerile, atavistic in multiple layers (the usury paragraph achieves a "medieval" flavor that adds a whole old dimension to the Hitlerian anti-Semitism it otherwise invokes-- a grim irony to be sure); it is hectoring when it isn't whining; it is obtuse, belligerent, nasty, appallingly devoid of humanity or charity. It is stylistically monotonous and irritating: reading it is like being pestered by a mosquito you can't swat away. It achieves the oppressiveness of totalitarian rhetoric, but with a lot less jargon. It conjures the impression of an announcement issuing from a loudspeaker at some kind of bizarre, implausible religious concentration camp. Despite the "religious" content, though, the author seems spiritually dead, a machine animated only by hatred and cold belligerence. But he does not rant or rave incoherently, like so many of us do.
In short, to my surprise, it doesn't sound crazy.
Just evil.
In case there was any doubt: it's a religious war. That's how they see it. As such, there is no compromise, no tolerance, no "live and let live." "Simplistic" as it still sounds, they really do hate America and our way of life; they hate, mock, and want to destroy the very idea of freedom, of democracy, of pluralism, of tolerance, of secular law; they hate Jews; they hate humanity. It's not an exaggeration, or a convenient hypocritical conceit. It's not "propaganda." It's actually true.
I recently saw Christopher Hitchens on some talk show or other glibly say something like: "they want to live in the 6th century desert with just one book. Their demand is that you cease to exist." Turns out, he was right.
UPDATE: Instantman says the letter is bogus. I'd say that's more likely to be the case than not. As Andrew Sullivan says, though, either way, it's a sincere attempt to sum up the Islamist/al Qaeda position, written by someone who obviously put a great deal of effort into the project. Otherwise he's an extremely clever satirist. And it has been enthusiastically circulated among al Qaeda sympathizers. Anyway, Reynolds has posted a concise reply.
Posted by Dr. Frank at November 25, 2002 07:44 AM | TrackBack