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Bin Laden's blunder He has set himself against the world Wednesday, November 7, 2001

With the videotaped statement released over the weekend, terrorist plotter Osama bin Laden committed a strategic error.

He took his considerable cachet and gambled it on one throw of the dice, condemning the leaders of most Muslim nations as infidels and hypocrites, and urging the rest of the world's 1 billion Muslims to rise up in a religious war against these leaders and the West.

The gamble failed.

Until that videotape appeared, bin Laden enjoyed considerable latitude in the Muslim world, not only in the streets, but also in the corridors of power, where he provokes such fear that many national leaders preferred covertly to appease him or bribe him to stay away.

But by condemning the leaders of virtually every Muslim nation as traitors to the faith because they and the states they head are part of the United Nations, bin Laden has forced them to choose sides when many would have preferred simply to continue appeasing him.

This was clear in Damascus, Syria, at a Saturday meeting of the Arab League attended by the foreign ministers of Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority. There, Amr Moussa, secretary general of the League, declared flatly that bin Laden "does not speak for Arabs and Muslims.''

Ahmed Maher, Egypt's foreign minister, concurred, saying that there is no war between Islam and the West. "I think there is a war between bin Laden and the world,'' Maher said.

These comments were all the more remarkable because the Arab League is not an Uncle Sam fan club. Far from it. The purpose of Saturday's meeting was to plan strategies for helping the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel, a U.S. ally. Moussa also underlined the Arab League's opposition to any U.S.-led attack against Arab states accused of sponsoring terrorism.

Bin Laden's blunder is not a surprise. He appears to be descending into megalomania, a self- anointed prophet intoxicated by his own poisonous brew of hatred, religious bigotry, twisted historical revisionism and apocalyptic fantasy.

This is a downhill path worn smooth by people such as Adolf Hitler, Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and People's Temple leader Jim Jones, all of whom ended badly, taking many followers and innocents with them.

While many Muslims around the world share some parts of bin Laden's resentment of the West's political, economic and cultural power, relatively few are ready to enlist in a global war of civilizations. As long as bin Laden hung back just a bit from calling outright for Armageddon, the possibility that he could do so could not be discounted, and this gave him power. But now the possibility can be discounted and he is much diminished as a result.

All bin Laden commands is a hard core of fanatics, not an entire religion or civilization. The true message in last weekend's videotape is that bin Laden and his bloodthirsty little army are alone against the world. Just as with violent, fanatic movements of the past, this one, too, has set itself up for destruction.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2001

Answers

Seems to me that if this is true, that Bin Laden only has "little" bloodthirsty army under his command, then we ought to stop bombing Afghanistan. Right now, reinforcements are pouring over the Pakistani border to support the fight of the Taliban. So, who are we after here, Bin Laden or the entire Taliban regime? If it's the Taliban, and we continue to kill them, there will be plenty of resistance against us for long into the future. If it's Bin Laden, and his little resistance group, that should be easy to locate and eliminate. I think his statement about Islamic leaders may get some of them ticked off temporarily, as it has, but it won't change things in the long run if we keep pounding the Taliban the way we are doing. IMHO.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2001

The Taliban refused to cooperate with us in apprehending laden. They support his 'jihad' and have said they will not turn laden over to us for trial.

Until they capitulate and laden is detained and turned over to us along with his gaggle of followers, they will be beat into submission unmercifully. Any innocents that die as a result will be the fault of the Taliban.

Just think, if he was turned over for trial, and found not guilty, what would happen?

We are not fighting Afghanistan, the country, but the regime that claims to control the country against the wishes of what the rest of the world considers the majority of the citezenry. that majority is on our side, but in the way of the campaign.

We are not fighting the religion of Islam. We are fighting a madman who has convinced his followers that his interpretation of the religion is the right one. Apparently there are considerable numbers of people that are gullible enough to believe him.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2001

I hear what you are saying, Barefoot, but the same logic would have applied in Viet Nam where we were just fighting Ho Chi Minh, right? I sometimes wonder if we ever learned anything from the Viet Nam fiasco.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 2001