Clever bin Laden

Submitted by Alex (United States), Jan 24, 2006 at 16:05

I think that a useful complement to this article would be the comments from the Rand Corporation (which I believe were cited on this website at the time) concerning the letter that bin Laden issued to Europe following the Madrid bombings, offering the Europeans a truce.

RAND speculated that bin Laden may have been appealing to European leftists in that letter, given his use of their language (condemning Zionists, rather than Jews, condemning globalization and international financial institutions, and portraying the US as the secret force ruling over the UN).

In his most recent letter, bin Laden seemed to be pandering not just to the Left, but to the American Left specifically. He apparently knows that Leftist criticism is more moderate in this country than in Europe, and so he did not even mention Zionists (let alone mentioning Jews), but refered simply to "influential individuals" whom he claims are profiting from the War on Terror.

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